The Pain in My Heart
by Saraste
Summary: Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. What will become of Inuyasha's unresolved wish to pursue Miroku? Shounenai, Dark fic, Angst. Rated M for mature themes.
1. Chapter 1

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. What will become of Inuyasha's unresolved wish to pursue Miroku?

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though.

Chapter One

The hanyou would not let out how frightened he really was.

He had to maintain a semblance of balance, of bravery. He laughed at the face of danger. Not shirking from it but meeting it head on.

But he really should have known better.

He should have fled, not fought alone. Should have listened to the nagging feeling in his gut that told him he'd not survive the confrontation on his own. Should have given into the urge to flee and hide.

Instead he'd chosen to stay, to fight, to keep up the image of bravery, his honour as a warrior remaining. His fear hidden behind a mask of bravado, taunts and dismissal. Refusing to back down.

His honour was his doom.

For Naraku was his most formidable woe to date. And the evil one could smell his fear, anyway. But hiding it was a matter of pride to the white-maned hanyou.

Their fight was short. Inuyasha was glad for that. And for the fact that his companions weren't with him at the time for most of the area was decimated. But he would have needed the backup.

In the end, Naraku had him pinned against a tree. He still had strength left, so he struggled. His movements were weakening by the second because of some poison Naraku had injected into his blood after having grazed him briefly with his weapon during their fight.

Inuyasha was pinned down and Naraku was ripping at his clothes. His face was entirely too close.

"Oh, my sweet Inuyasha..kukuku... What I will make you suffer through..."

Inuyasha was ripped apart, heart, body and soul. He had never in his life felt such pain, such helplessness. He withdrew into a corner in his mind, covering and repeating to himself that it wasn't happening. The poison in his blood prevented him from retaliating. But still he felt every second of it, heard every word that was said only said to hurt him more.

His soul was being torn to shreds.

Even more so as that one face, a grinning face surrounded by black hair, body clad in dark purple and black, swam into his hazed, beaten mind. An image that faded as his body was abused, beaten, broken. For the other would not want him after this.

He felt the pain of claws slashing at his face. He cried as he felt the poison burning his eyes, his vision rapidly faltering and then.. nothing. He felt the other halt his movements for a second and lower himself near to his ear, whispering. "You'll not see him again, ever..."

He tried to swallow the broken sob that escaped his lips. Naraku laughed.

Then the movement, cruel, unforgiving and relentless, was resumed again and he felt the pain returning. In and out of his body in a gruesome rhythm, his helpless cries of pain music to Naraku's ears.

Soon his body, unable to take it any more, just shut down, letting him drown into blissful nothingness.

Naraku left him there for dead. But in the end his body refused to give in and he lingered on the very brink between life and death. The image of a happily laughing face with raven hair flitting on the edge of his consciousness before it disappeared into the blackness his minds eye had become.

He lay on the dirt, barely breathing, barely alive. Hanging on by a thread, life slowly leaving his faltering body as his wounds bled.

He was left there, on the unnaturally created clearing in a middle of a forest. To be saved by his friends.


	2. Chapter 2

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha 

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : contains a mention of rape, some blood, disfigurationm angst

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

This chappie : The group finds Inuyasha and Miroku rushes with him to take him to Kaede's.

A/N : Originally written in Dec.2006, edited in Sept.2007

Chapter Two

The group of Shard collectors approached the area careful and alert. The lack of trees alone was a very bad sign. They had left after Inuyasha when he had not come back when promised. He had said he was going to scan the area and return when he could, and they had waited for a long time. But worry for their friend made them go after him in the end.

Fidgety and worried they had tracked Inuyasha down.

None of them were prepared for what they finally saw. A large area of the forest had been completely wiped out. The dead limbs of trees lay scattered everywhere. Branches laying on the ground, half molten. There was no undergrowth to speak of anymore, all had been burnt.

"Naraku.." Miroku whispered, the half demons shoki was definitely responsible for this. The monk hastened his pace, keeping his staff in front of him, ready to strike. Behind him Sango stood alert, her hiraikotsu at the ready. Kagome was even more behind, clutching Shippo to her chest, Kirara by her side.

In the centre of what had once been a clearing, lay a barely clothed figure.

Breath caught in Miroku's chest as he saw the lone figure lying on the ground and he threw away all precaution and ran to the fallen hanyo. The girls were steps behind him. After his first glance, he halted them."Don't, don't come any closer.."

He dropped to his knees to the ground, devastated. He heard a horrified gasp behind him indicating that the others had also seen what he saw all too clearly, disgusted but unable to avert his gaze.

Inuyasha was splayed on his back, naked, his body full of deep gashes and lacerations. His face was a mess, and it was evident that his eyes were severely damaged. The monk frantically searched something to cover Inuyasha's naked form with and spied a torn piece originally from his hakama not far off. He retrieved it and wrapped it to cover the hanyo.

From the corner of his eye he'd seen that the demon exterminator was both restraining and comforting the distraught miko. Shippou seemed shocked, but seemed not to have grasped the full horror of what had befallen Inuyasha.

Miroku knelt to pick up Inuyasha's seemingly lifeless form and stood up. The hanyo didn't even stir, nor moan. It made Miroku's heart grow cold. He was too still. But he could feel a low heartbeat on the hanyou's jugular.

He turned to the others and spoke. "We need to get him to Kaede's, he's barely alive.."

Sango helped him to Kirara's back and Miroku held Inuyasha close to him. He turned to them before taking off. "Keep safe and be careful!"

Sango nodded, Kagome still crying against her shoulder. They weren't that far from the village and Naraku was known to vanish after he had done his evil, but it was better to be that extra careful.

After what had happened to Inuyasha.

Miroku gently steadied his grip on the wounded hanyo and took off. As he went he prayed that Inuyasha would stay alive. A gentle smile adorned his face as he looked down at the hanyo's face.

He had loved him for so long.

He hoped he would not lose him before they had even had a chance to be together. He cursed

Naraku under his breath. Hadn't the hanyo already suffered enough in the past? But Naraku's doings were not driven by what was fair but by what amused him or was useful to him. It was clear Inuyasha had been left for dead.

Left for dead after he'd been beaten, crushed and violated.

Miroku soon arrived at the village and rushed into Kaede's hut.


	3. Chapter 3

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : blood, disfiguration, non-graphic minor mention of a rape

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

This chapter : Miroku gets Inuyasha to Kaede's for treatment, she worries for his mutilated eyes.

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though.

Chapter Three

Kaede gasped as she first saw Miroku rushing into her hut. In his arms the monk carried Inuyasha who was very badly injured, his face disfigured. She looked into the monk's face.

"Naraku." Miroku quipped.

Laying the hanyo down carefully, Miroku's hands lingered a bit on his pale, bloodied hand, caressing it briefly. Kaede bustled in the background, searching her shelves for salves, herbs and bandages.

Miroku continued to put pressure to the part of cloth ripped from his own robes against a deep gash in Inuyasha's chest. Along the way to the village he had bound what wounds he could, leaving the hem of his robes torn. He had felt the other's heartbeat getting slower, faltering, but miraculously never stopping. It was faint but it was there.

And now, here, when he had got there and had time to think he found himself afraid.

_What if I won't ever have the chance to tell him how much I love him, that all that is just an act? Please, please don't leave me..._

They dressed and treated the hanyo's wounds in silence. He was covered in blood and most bones in his body were broken or even shattered. Naraku had seemingly slashed at him with all he had. Miroku looked away when Kaede tended to the wounds that Inuyasha had in his thighs and elsewhere. He could not help but feel incredibly guilty for not being there, not when Inuyasha would have needed it. He didn't want to even begin to imagine what kind of torture of body and mind he had gone through.

But it was all clearly evident. Had been back there, on the forest. Inuyasha laying in a pool of blood, his legs parted obscenely.

Naraku had raped Inuyasha.

Raped him and tortured him and taken away all the hanyo had. He had mauled his insides, ripping at him, making sure he would be in excruciating pain, breaking him. If the hanyo survived, most of the wounds would heal. But not those of the heart.

Kaede frowned deeply when they finally looked at his face. Naraku's miasma had seeped deep into the wounds. The flesh around his eyes was puffy and bloated, dark liquid continuing to seep from the wounds. She dabbed them with a clean cloth, treated them with all the herbs she had and bandaged them.

"I'm worried about his eyes... They look bad."

Miroku could just nod. For what would he have said?

Dark liquid seeped through the cloth.


	4. Chapter 4

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : contains a non-graphic mention of rape, disfiguration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though.

Chapter Four

He trashed on the bed, screaming. His back arched as he tried to fight, to hide, to get away. He could feel the claws ripping at his body, felt the pain. The pain in his backside, being torn apart from the inside, the agony spearing him, ripping him in two.

Felt it all over and over again, never free of the nightmare that had become reality.

The humiliation. The utter helplessness. The fear. He relived them all. And the crashing down of his dreams for a happy future with...

He screamed as a hand touched his.

And he froze when he heard an all too familiar voice.

"Lay still, you're badly injured."

It was Miroku, his sweet Miroku. He turned to the voice but could not see. There was only darkness. He tried to move his hands but it seemed they were useless, he hadn't actually even trashed that much. His whole body ached.

"Miroku.." He whispered out, his voice crackling and hoarse.

"Kaede!" Miroku yelled out, his hands still on his arms.

Inuyasha hear as another person entered the room. He felt the air move as someone sat beside him, by Miroku's side. Miroku's hands felt warm as they held him down. He never wanted that touch to end.

"Inuyasha, child.."

He could hear the seriousness in her tone. She reached over him and removed the bandages covering his eyes. There was only darkness. He couldn't see anything. He began to panic. This could not be. _'You will not see him again..' _

"No.."

"Inuyasha.."

"Don't touch me!"

And Miroku watched as Inuyasha slowly turned his head away from them. He had shuddered seeing the horrible scarring underneath the bandages. They had had hopes that the eyes would have healed but there must have been some poison in the mix and Inuyasha's eyes had all but been ripped out from their sockets.

Miroku made his way outside the hut. Kagome and Sango waited there, anxious. They had heard Inuyasha's cries and had rushed to the hut. Seeing Miroku, their hope faded.

"So he is?.." Sango asked.

"Blind."

They all looked away, not knowing what to do, to say. Inuyasha had always been so strong and now he was completely and utterly defenceless.


	5. Chapter 5

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M for mature content (rape and it's aftermath...)

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape,dis-figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though. Originally written in Dec. 2006, edited in Oct. 2007.

**Chapter Five**

"Go away Miroku!", Inuyasha screamed as he heard familiar steps entering the hut.

He would have turned his back on the monk but he was still far too weak, could barely move a muscle. He felt humiliated, alone. How could he have been so defenceless? Had _let_ that bastard close enough to do what he did.

He would have just wanted to curl up on himself and cry. Miroku would never want to be with him now, now that he knew what humiliation he had gone through.

For the monk surely knew. Kaede would have told him. And it would have been obvious, the hanyo thought.

"Please..", Inuyasha cursed inwardly at how his voice creaked, "..please just leave me alone Miroku. I need to be alone.." He couldn't prevent the tears from coming any more. He stubbornly kept his head turned the other way, to preserve even some of his dignity. But in his heart he knew he did not have any, not after what had happened, what he had_allowed_ to be done to him.

Not even a shred.

Inuyasha heard the monk sit down by him. He felt a wet towel dabbing at his forehead, cooling his fevered skin. Why was he fevered? Must be because of the poison and the wounds.

"Inuyasha.." The monks voice, which he had feared he would never hear again, soothed him. Almost against his will he turned his head towards the voice. It was then when he realized that the other couldn't have even seen his tears for there were bandages wrapped over his eyes. He would never see the monk's face again for as long as he lived.

The knowing pierced his heart. _I've lost you..._

He took a deep breath, letting go of his anger, he was under their care now. To be taken care of. Theirs to protect. For he could not do so for some time.

Inuyasha knew his eyes would not heal.

And to be able to compensate for the loss of his sight with his other senses would take time. And for the moment, who knew for how long, he was effectively rendered immobile because of the horrendous damage done to his body. His self-healing body would have repaired most of the damage easily by now had it not been for the poison still in his system.

"How long?.." His own voice was hoarse, he felt his head being lifted and a cup being pressed to his lips. He drank greedily. Miroku laid him gently down onto the covers.

"Almost a month."

"What?!"

"Calm yourself, Inuyasha. Kaede wonders that too, with you still being in such poor health. She says there must be something else taxing your strength. Even with your demonic blood you should be able to move a little.. But... Your wounds, they were... terrible."

There was such sadness in Miroku's voice and his hand rested briefly, tentatively, on his.

"Does she think that might affect my eyes too?" Inuyasha was resigned to his fate, but still he wanted it affirmed, wanted to kill hope before it became a weakness.

Miroku sought out Inuyasha's hand again, making the others heart jump and breath hitch.

"No, I'm sorry... That bastard Naraku damaged them too much..and his poison... I'm..I'm sorry."

Inuyasha swallowed. And then something happened he had not dared hope for.

Miroku scooped him up carefully and held him close. "I'll be your eyes.. Your sight.. And your love, should you let me?.." with those words, the monk brushed his lips against Inuyasha's in a ghost of a kiss.

Then he pressed them fully against Inuyasha's.

It was sweet. It was fire. It was all his dreams answered. He felt weak, he wanted to give in, oh, he so wanted to. Save for his shame, his hurt he would have eagerly kissed back. Would have given Miroku all he had, his soul, his love, his heart.

But he couldn't.

A taunting voice mocked him in his head and he heard his own screams.

"_What a slut you are, swallowing me up so eagerly... Your body screams to be used. And I'll happily oblige. Kukuku..."_

"_No, please, no...',"he whimpered piteously._

" _'No' isn't an option.. Not in this life. I'll be fucking you raw until you die." _

So even while it felt like he was tearing out his own heart Inuyasha struggled as strongly as he could against Miroku to make him stop the kiss.

Miroku drew away in astonishment. "Inuyasha..", he whispered questioningly.

Inuyasha trembled under him, sobbing quietly. "I cant... dirty..dirty..You know what he did to me.. I'm damaged... Broken.. Don't..don't.. Dirty..."

Miroku tried to soothe the distraught hanyou. But he drew away from his hands. "I.. Kagome..need her..please.. can't.." Miroku dejectedly gave in, hearing the pain in Inuyasha's voice.

He went outside the hut, leaving Inuyasha alone.

Soon there was a rap to the door-frame and a timid, low voice asked if she could come in. He conceded with a silent, slightly raspy 'Yes'. Kagome hurried to him and knelt right by him. He could hear her gasp in horror even though he suspected that she'd seen him while he was unconscious. She reached for the wet cloth and did the same what Miroku had done.

"What is it, Inuyasha?.." She asked, her voice compassionate. His body shook in time with silent sobs.

"He loves me..."

"Isn't that a good thing? You said you could never love anyone like you've grown to love him. You told that to me yourself."

She grasped his hand in hers, squeezing it reassuringly. Their friendship had survived him admitting that he could never love her like she would maybe have wanted. Instead he loved her like the sister he never had. Loved her as his dearest friend. For her, who had known him the longest since his awakening from his enchanted sleep, he could not lie. Her he could not deceit.

"But I'm... sullied...dirty... You..know what..what that bastard did.." His voice faded, breaking into silent sobs, the humiliation and pain was too fresh. He still felt as if Naraku was violating him, his body, his mind. He felt so utterly defenceless and helpless.

Alone.

"Inuyasha, it was not your fault. That's what he would have you think. It was not your fault!" And she gave his feverish brow a chaste kiss. "We will keep you safe.."

Outside the hut Miroku threw himself against the wall just beside the door. He had not heard what words had been exchanged but had seen the gestures, the familiarity, the soothing kiss. Of course, that is why Inuyasha must have refused him, he was in love with her! He crumpled to the dirt, defeated, hugging his knees. Tears streaked from the eyes which he had offered to be Inuyasha's.

He cried until bitter dreams took him into their black oblivion.


	6. Chapter 6

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M for mature themes

Warnings : contains a non-graphic mention of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

A/N : Originally written in Jan. 2007, edited in Oct. 2007.

**Chapter Six**

"You should at least see him once in a while.." Kagome reprimanded the monk. He looked at her, barely able to conceal his contempt. Her comment was moot, though, as Inuyasha refused to see Miroku.

He wept for days on end. It had continued for two weeks like this, now. Kagome sat by Inuyasha and treated to his wounds which healed so very slowly. He was able to move some but it was still a long ways until he could walk. The dressings over the hanyou's eyes still required daily changing because dark puss still oozed from the wounds. Kagome shed silent tears while she changed them, mourning for her friend.

Inuyasha still suffered horrible nightmares. The waking nightmare he had been forced to endure haunted even his dreams. He could not get over it. He felt the pain all over again. He relived it, and in his dreams his subconsciousness which hadn't been able to suppress the memories from etching into the corners of his mind replayed the horror. The voice, the pain.

Why could he not forget? To be rid of the feeling of having been sullied, dirty, broken in the worst way...

That is why he had pushed Miroku away. He was afraid now. Afraid that even whatever intimacy he could share with the man the nightmares would loom over his happiness, poisoning it. He cried over it at night and sulked during the day. He became otherwise sullen too.

He would sit for days on end, propped up with pillows, just sitting, in silence. He had begun to be picky over his eating and he'd have to be coaxed to take in even some nourishment. Kagome forcefully spooned a herbal broth into his mouth one day and brought it up.

"You are unwell, even with you still recovering. You should have gotten better now."

"Hn.."

"Inuyasha!"

He raised his hand and batted her spoon-wielding hand away, spilling the broth all over.

"You know what I remember, about that day? You know what... ". Inuyasha raised himself up, grimacing as he raised his hand and started to unwrap the bandages on his face. Kagome wanted to look away, but really couldn't. She gasped a seeing his face, the scars covering his face.

"And the only thing I see..", he swallowed, "..the only thing I see, is that bastards face.. I see it in my dreams every night. But _him_..his face has faded from my memory. I can't see him any more.. I want to die, I can't live with this any more..."

Kagome ached for the pain shown clearly on Inuyasha's face. It was raw. And she knew the nightmares might never cease, that they would always be on the back of Inuyasha's mind, haunting him. The hanyo was rocking back and forth now, crying silently. For him to heal, he would need the one person he was pushing away.

Miroku.

"I know this isn't what you need to hear but.. I'm leaving with Sango for a few days. We have to get to more Shards before Naraku finds them. And Miroku will look out for you. Give him a chance. He loves you.."

"No..."

"You can't let _him_ win."

"I said no!" And he swung his arm, knocking the bowl of broth from her hands, it cracked and broke on the floor, the broth spilling over.

Kagome sighed, got up and straightened her skirt. "I am going, it's better for you. You'll see. Give Miroku a chance... he truly loves you. And he..he can help you in a way I can't." Kagome smiled as Inuyasha actually almost sulked to her words, knowing the truth in them.

Kagome picked up the remnants of the bowl on her way outside where Miroku was trying hard to pretend he hadn't been eavesdropping.

"Well I'll just.."

"You aren't going anywhere!" The girl cornered him. Miroku looked at her dismissively. "I know that you heard what I said to him."

"But he!..You!"

"We're just friends, nothing else. There was a time when I would've.. But he's been in love with you for ages!"

"You kissed him!"Miroku accused.

"Not on the lips!" Kagome shot back, she wanted to smack him around so much.

"But you're so..familiar with him! There must be something between you two, there just has to be!"

"That's a little thing called friendship! Get this into your thick skull.. Inuyasha..Loves..You!"And she did smack him on the side of his head.

"Ow! Why you!" Miroku glared daggers at Kagome.

They turned at the sound of someone clearing their throat. It was Sango.

"Ready to go Kagome?"

"Yes, as soon as this thick headed lecherous excuse of a monk will admit he's in love with Inuyasha and gets it into his head that Inuyasha loves him, not me!"

"Well if you're trying to do all that, we'll still be here tomorrow.." The demon exterminator sighed dejectedly. The two men were both so thick headed.

Kagome looked at Miroku sternly "If you really love him, go to him. I really fear for him. I feel that he grows weaker by the day. He needs comfort in a way I can't give. He needs to be reassured he can be whole again. He _needs_ you!" That said, she turned on her heels and stormed towards the outskirts to the village, only stopping to snatch her backpack from the ground outside Kaede's door.

"Should I leave Kirara to you? We would need her but if you feel?.."

Miroku waved his hand dismissively. "You take her, Kaede's here, even if she's old she has defended this village by herself before. And you'll be drawing danger behind yourselves with the Shards she carries with her. And Naraku won't come, at least I hope so. He must still think that he left Inuyasha for.." Here his voice choked and he could not say what he'd intended.

Sango lay her hand on his for a second and nodded, understanding. "Well be back as soon as we can. I didn't say it to Kagome but I'm hoping we could get some help from Kouga. Hopefully he won't be too mocking over Inuyasha's condition." He just nodded and watched as she left behind the girl.

Sighing to steel himself for the harsh words he would surely encounter he retraced his steps and soon stood in front of Kaede's door. He took a deep breath and marched in.


	7. Chapter 7

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M for mature themes (the aftermath of rape).

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

A/N : Originally written in Jan. 2007, edited in Oct. 2007. This chapter is just mush, pure, unadulterated fluffy mush.

Chapter 7

Miroku trod slowly into the room. Inuyasha was laying on his side. He seemed to be in a deep sleep. Miroku sat by him and sighed deeply.

_He loves me?_

The monk tucked away some stray strands of the white mane from the hanyo's face. Miroku cringed when his gaze fell on the deep, ugly gashes running over Inuyasha's eyes. They weren't the puffy, bloated wounds he had seen weeks ago but still scabby scars. Not yet fully healed, the skin around them was red and they were still seeping a mostly clear liquid clotted with dark strands of Naraku's poison. The monk forced himself to swallow the bile rising up in his throat.

He had to look away.

But then he looked back, etching every detail into his mind's eye as a reminder of what he would have to save Inuyasha from. He knew Inuyasha probably didn't know how bad his eyes looked, but he must have some idea. He would have to try and save Inuyasha from his self and from the memories that haunted him, and remembering those clear signs etched on his face was a way to do that.

Now while Inuyasha slept, and wasn't constantly throwing him out, Miroku had a chance to see how his other wounds had healed. The hanyo's limbs were still covered in bandages and so was his torso. His face, except for the small cuts and bruises that had already healed, had not even been bandaged save for his eyes.

Miroku didn't even want to think how the worst wounds, done by Naraku as he had violated, raped Inuyasha and torn at his insides, were healing. Didn't want to think how his precious, beloved hanyo had suffered in the bastards hands.

But the worst wounds, the one's which might never even heal were those of the heart, of his soul. Miroku prayed that Inuyasha would let him close, let him love him. Otherwise he feared that the hanyou would just slowly wither away.

Miroku withdrew his has reluctantly as the hanyo stirred, shifting in his sleep, moaning voicelessly. Miroku stared at him twist, clench his hands and trash. Fevered words fell as a whispered mantra fell from his lips.

"No.. Please.. Please.. No.."

His tone was so pained. Pleading with the nightmare in his head. The living nightmare he'd gone through. It broke Miroku's heart.

He rushed to aid Inuyasha when he coughed up blood as the after effects of the poison still lingered inside of him. Inuyasha hacked and drank greedily as Miroku held up a cup of water to his lips. Then his body tensed, his half awake brain realizing who it was sitting by his side. He began to withdrew, pushing at the monk weakly. Wishing him away.

"I told you to go away..." His whisper was forced, as if he was acting against his will. If not his will, then his heart. Inuyasha wanted for Miroku to be happy, something he thought he could never give the other. "I.. Please Miroku.. I.."

The monk didn't answer. He deftly picked up the jar of herbal salve by Inuyasha's bed, applied it gently to the skin on the mangled parts of the hanyo's face. Then he picked up a fresh roll of bandages and rolled them in place over Inuyasha's eyes in silence. Having finished, he grabbed the now unresisting hanyo in a fierce, protective hug and planted a kiss on his forehead.

"I won't. I won't let you face this alone. I won't leave you. I love you Inuyasha. I can never erase what was done to you but I don't think that he sullied or dirtied you... In you I see the man I love. The man who won't let me love him.."

He connected their lips in a fierce and sweetly possessive kiss. Inuyasha tensed again. Miroku poured his soul out to him, rubbing gentle, soothing hands over his back until he calmed.

Something inside the hanyo shifted but didn't disappear altogether. He gave in to his hearts desire, gave into the closeness. When they broke apart he rested his head against Miroku's shoulder.

"When he, that bastard.. When he blinded me all I could think was that I'd never see your face again. The face of the man I loved." Inuyasha turned his bandage covered face to him, planting a kiss on Miroku's lips. His hand running over the monk's features, feeling them.

"I'll keep you safe, I'll be your sight, your strength...," Miroku whispered as their lips parted.

Inuyasha let himself believe in his words. Let himself trust him. Let down the hastily built walls around his heart. Let himself be happy.

If just for the moment, the tiniest fraction. If he could have this, maybe it would be enough?


	8. Chapter 8

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M for mature themes (aftermath of rape)

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? Angst and fluff.

This Chapter : Inuyasha falls ill.

Time : 1 month and 3 weeks

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though.

Chapter 8

Inuyasha woke with a start.

That nightmare had once again haunted his dreams.

He felt strong arms around himself, it comforted him to feel the monk there. Inuyasha felt safe, was safe, but it still took time to shake the images from his head. The voice. Flashes of a taunting smile, his sobbed pleas when the pain assaulted him... Broke him.

'Such cruelty', Inuyasha mused, 'that the things I see in my dreams are what I don't want to see.'

The hanyou raised a hand to his bandages, his claws ripping the fabric. Heated tears flowed from beneath the already stained bandages. Sobbing quietly, he felt around him, touching the hands enveloped around his torso. He snuggled against the warmth, the safety.

Inuyasha raised a hand, tentatively, and lay it over his lovers face. Through touch he tried to remember, tried to clear that clouded image in his mind to reflect the face of his love. But he couldn't. The loss of his sight and the trauma of his assault had etched that, what he'd never hoped to remember so vividly, deep into his mind, locking all else away. It was like a heavy mist hanging over everything else.

His silent sobs finally woke Miroku up.

The monk ran a soothing hand over Inuyasha's back, hugging him comfortingly. Miroku kissed the top of Inuyasha's head like that of a distressed child. Which he in some ways was.

"Shh... What is it, Inuyasha?", he asked soothingly, his lover's tears upsetting him. They did not surprise him, considering how the hanyou had been broken, body and mind, by Naraku.

Inuyasha laid his gentle fingers on Miroku's face, memorizing, touching, feeling him there.

"I can't see you", he said brokenly. "Naraku said that I wouldn't and he was right. I can't see you, not even in my mind. It... every thing's blocked and I can't get to it. I'm..."

Miroku cut him off with a kiss, holding him tight. "Don't say that! Don't you ever say that.", he continued with a gentler, hushed tone. For it was clear that the hanyou would've once again turned to words of self-loathing, of disgust. Inuyasha smiled, those thoughts driven from his mind, at least for now. He let Miroku hold onto him, let himself be cared for.

Falling to a dreamless slumber in the warmth of those strong arms.

It was good that Inuyasha had let Miroku into his heart because he soon needed all the support and love he could get.

For two days after, the hanyou fell gravely ill. It seemed he had not been as healthy as they'd hoped. Naraku's poison seemed to have lingered, coming back with a vengeance at the most inopportune moment.

Had he been human Miroku could have purified it from his body with a sutra, but the poison wasn't there.

It seemed to affect only his demon side.

He became more lucid during the night he was human, three days later, and his fever dropped somewhat but he had still been unbearably weak. And in time with the first rays of the morning colouring his hair white his fever had come back with a vengeance. But more than the poison seemed to be amiss.

Miroku sat beside him, dabbing his feverish brow with a wet cloth. A fumbling hand sought out his, the weak gesture full of despair. The hanyo was so tired, his body already so worn, having just started recovering from the last remains of the attack. Now he was wrecked with feverish fits and bouts of nausea and he shook even under the copious blankets over his body.

"Hush.." Miroku whispered, raising a cup of herbal broth to his beloveds lips, urging him to drink. Soon the hanyou drifted off to a dreamless slumber. Miroku spied old Kaede on the door of the hut, cast a glance to his lover's sleeping form and hurried to her noiselessly.

"What more can we do? His body won't endure this foe much longer.. He's too weak."

The old miko nodded sadly. This was all just because the hanyo had almost given up, refusing nourishment and withdrawing onto himself before Miroku had managed to break through his self-destructive behaviour. Too little too late was her thought.

"If he was human he'd already be dead."

And Naraku's poison was devious, almost impossible to drive out from his body.

Now they could just anxiously wait for Kagome and Sango to return, so that Kagome might fetch whatever medicine her time had to help him. For Kaede could not. The fever would pass but Inuyasha might not have enough time to wait for it.. nor had he the strength for it.

So they waited and watched as by every passing hour, Inuyasha grew weaker and weaker.

His body seemed to try and get rid of the poison by bleeding it out through his scars. It weakened him still, leaving him a shallow shell of his former self, veering between life and death.

On the fifth day, Kagome and Sango arrived back at the village, chatting amiably, glad of their success at retrieving a new Shard. They stopped on their tracks as Miroku rushed out of Kaede's hut, having been informed by a villager of their arrival. The haunted look on the monk's face, his haggard appearance, they took all that in and rushed straight to him, worry tugging at their hearts.

"What is it?" Kagome asked, breath uneven and shaky.

"It's Inuyasha.."

Kagome almost didn't want to hear, for the sorrow in Miroku's voice was something she didn't want to have to hear. Surely Inuyasha wasn't?..

"What is it?" She felt silly and impatient at having to repeat herself, but the monk seemed dazed, not really thinking about them, the way he kept glancing back at the hut. She saw him shake his head, as if to clear his thoughts.

Then he spoke, urgent and with a level voice.

"Inuyasha's ill, he's got a fever. It's the poison, it wasn't all out. I need you to go back to your time, bring some medicine for it, anything Kaede has hasn't helped. Please..."

Kagome's eyes widened and she nodded. In the future, there were many kinds of medicines to help get a fever down. She then started to rummage through her pack for some painkillers which she knew would help get the fever down some. She handed them to Miroku.

"Take these, only two tablets at a time, no more. They should help a little. I'll go back and get something more efficient!"

"Take Kirara!" Sango offered beside her, waving the fire neko to come to them. "She'll get you there in no time."

But the miko changed her mind in that instant, needing to see her friend before she went.

"Inuyasha, I need to see him!"

Kagome rushed inside the hut, the monk on her heels, and knelt beside Inuyasha's inanimate form as she reached him. She took one look at his pale face, coloured only by the bright red spots on his cheeks, tell tale signs of the fever burning him up. Kagome snatched the pills from Miroku's hand, he had already sat down and was holding one of Inuyasha's hands in his own, and popped two pills out of the package.

"Water...", she whispered frantically, being helped by Kaede, who offered a cup of the liquid to her.

Kagome bent down next to the lovers, facing Miroku. She gently lifted Inuyasha's neck, mixing the pills into the water and making him drink, the hanyou swallowed by instinct, by luck not even choking on the liquid.

Kagome laid a reassuring hand on Miroku's, making him look up. She tried to smile reassuringly.

"I'll be right back, I hope these help." And she pressed the package of pills to his other hand and exited the hut.

Miroku squeezed Inuyasha's hand. He hoped it would be enough. He hoped Kagome's medicines would help. He hoped Inuyasha would live.

For hope was all he had.

His love alone wouldn't save him.


	9. Chapter 9

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M for mature themes (aftermath of rape).

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroko be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? Angst and fluff.

This Chapter : Miroku can even make the single act of washing sensual.

A/N : This started as an exercise in trying to write a darkfic. It seems to have veered more towards angst, though.

Chapter Nine

Miroku's fear for Inuyasha's life ebbed slowly as his fever came down. The hanyou's skin still felt hot to touch but it was cooler than what it had been when the fire inside had seemed to almost consume him.

Kagome had returned after a few hours, out of breath and with an air of confidence. As she had entered the hut she immediately started to scrounge the small bag she carried on her shoulder for the medicine inside.

"I don't know about the effects these would have for the poison, but these should at least bring the fever down." She had brandished a package of tablets to them.

She had taken out one, seeing Miroku already holding Inuyasha's head up, she popped the pill into his mouth and made him drink water, making him swallow. Inuyasha had coughed but the pills had went down.

Miroku stroked Inuyasha's still warm cheek. He was relieved. He lay down next to Inuyasha, wrapping his arms around his lover's sleeping form and snuggled to him. The girls looked at them and sighed, they looked so sweet together. Inuyasha sidled close to the warmth. The monk kissed his brow.

The girls left the hut to give them their privacy and for Inuyasha to get the rest he sorely needed.

Consciousness came slowly back to Inuyasha.

He was aware of noises around him. And his thoughts didn't seem to be so confused, jumbled. He was aware of a hand in his, he moved his own, grasping it tighter. Wrapping his own long, thin fingers around the more fleshy hand. He'd lost weight in all of his body, having been ill for so long.

"Inuyasha?"

He heard the softly spoken query and, despite his lack of sight, turned his head instinctively towards the voice, old gestures of the body dying hard. It was Miroku's voice that had spoken and his hand holding his.

"How are you feeling?"

Inuyasha shifted his head.

"Hmm... Fuzzy..."

He felt being lifted up in a embrace. Miroku pressed a kiss to each of his cheeks. Warm, tender and loving. Inuyasha sighed, content.

Miroku lay down beside him, absently stroking the hanyo's fair hair. His other hand wrapped possessively around his shoulders, holding his lover close. Fear had gripped him tightly during these past weeks, but being able to talk to Inuyasha now, knowing he was alert and not only awake in a feverish daze made the monk feel more secure.

"I feared for you..", Miroku sighed, pressing his head to Inuyasha's hair.

"I feel ..better now." The hanyo graced the monk with a tired but reassuring smile.

Miroku watched him happily. He cupped his lovers cheeks and pressed a tender kiss to his soft lips.

Inuyasha revelled in the feeling, being loved and cared for. After the kiss ended Miroku just held him, his breath ghosting on Inuyasha's skin. Fingers caressed his back in circles, soothingly, Miroku gripping him against himself like he'd disappear at any second.

But even through all the love and attention lavished on him, Inuyasha soon became aware of his body. He felt the not-so pleasant feeling of not having bathed in weeks. He felt stifled in his skin, the feeling very unpleasant. Miroku noticed his slight squirming and guessed his discomfort.

"Let me wash you."

Inuyasha, despite all, flinched. They were both trying hard to build a relationship from the scattered pieces that Inuyasha's assault had left behind. But the hanyou was still insecure and very sensitive and guarding over his body. Miroku felt him tense and heard the hitch in his breath.

"I won't if you really don't want me to, but I'd think you'd rather be clean.."

Inuyasha battled with himself. His once abused body screamed 'no', he was still very skittish of anyone seeing his body, any part of it. But he knew how much he was hurting Miroku by refusing him. The manic, debilitating laughter in his head had not ceased, being always there. In an attempt to muffle it, even a bit, Inuyasha decided to take the first step towards healing, to let new, happier memories a chance to form. He nodded his head hesitantly.

And he did feel rather in need of a bath. Well, he felt _much_ in need of a bath, actually.

The loving kiss on his lips took some of his shakiness away, Miroku was so gentle with him, he knew the monk would never hurt him.

He was divested of the loose shirt he was wearing and left topless. Inuyasha shivered as the cool air prickled his skin. Sweat had dried on his body, making it sticky to touch as he reached a hand to touch his arm. He heard water dripping into a bucket as a cloth was being wrung. Miroku started to swipe his skin with long steady gestures. He dragged the cloth over his skin, Inuyasha welcomed the cool touch. Miroku was so tender, so careful.

Washing Inuyasha proved to be very hard for Miroku. For he could not avert his eyes from the nasty scars still present on Inuyasha's body. The nasty slash that ran across Inuyasha's stomach, the stripe-like scars that looked like whiplashes which covered the hanyo's arms. The bruises had faded now but Miroku still remembered how Inuyasha's body had been covered with them, nigh every bone in his body having been broken, the injuries appearing to the outside as severe bruises in all shades of red and blue. He could still feel Inuyasha being tense, his minds defences still up despite what he might have said. The monk could, would not, blame him. Inuyasha's mind would still take it's time to heal.

Miroku plunged the cloth back into the water and wrung it free of excess fluid. He started to wash Inuyasha's back first, running the cloth in circles over tense muscles. He puffed out a breath of air, he could not dampen his desire for the hanyo even now. He had never really observed the hanyo's form before, hadn't really had the opportunity to do so. The flat planes of his body, the rippling muscles, the smoothness of his skin. He was beautiful to Miroku's eyes, something Naraku hadn't managed to take away in his attempt to disfigure him.

Inuyasha fidgeted as Miroku ran fingers over his skin, the monk himself unaware of the gesture, his hand guiding itself to feel his marred skin. The hanyo's posture was stiff, he willed himself to calm. 'It's Miroku, it's not _him_!' he was battling with the images flooding his mind, cursing that he could not just turn around and etch the others face in his mind and reassure himself. To paint that loving face over the cruel, malicious one.

Miroku's fingers skidded to a halt when he was tracing the contours of Inuyasha's shoulder blades. He withdrew his fingers, conscious now of the gesture. Inuyasha, despite all, felt like he'd been rejected. A silent sob escaped him in spite of all his efforts to stifle it and Miroku understood immediately. He planted a kiss to each of his shoulders, reassuring his lover.

The tense moments were filled with the silent shuffle of the cloth against skin, the splashing of the water against the sides of the bucket and the drops falling down, breaking the surface as slippery hands wrung the cloth.

Inuyasha let his other senses guide him since his sight could not. He was waking them, having let them be dormant, not as keen as they could be, during his ill health.

There was a ... sweet scent hanging heavily in the air all around him. It wasn't annoying, just out of place.

"What's that scent?", he inquired as Miroku was washing one of his outstretched hands.

"It's one of those soaps Kagome keeps bringing back from her time."

The monk was almost glad his face couldn't be seen by the other since he blushed a shade of crimson, remembering how he'd come by the soap. Kagome had almost sneaked up on him earlier that day, before Inuyasha had woken. She'd given him the soap, with an unmistakably lewd grin. The wrap had been rather girly, sporting flowers and pictures of different kinds of fruit. But the scent was nice enough.

Having washed Inuyasha's back and hands, Miroku now shuffled to face his lover, wetting the cloth once again. As the damp fabric first touched Inuyasha's marred chest the hanyo nearly jumped. A scarlet tint spread across the features of his face.

Inuyasha distracted himself with trying to guess the ingredients in the soap using his keen sense of smell. There was the base of scent of soap itself, with a few others mixed over it. A subtle hint of peach, a tint of strawberry and a smidgen of something the hanyo could not place. Must be something from her time, he reasoned.

He could also smell the monk's arousal hanging in the air as the cloth brushed over his skin. The blush on his cheeks deepened. How had he missed that...

Despite himself, Inuyasha let himself enjoy the attention Miroku gave him. But still he ruffled up as Miroku dropped the cloth into the water, his front now washed, and spoke up softly.

"I need you to.. to.. "

And it clicked together in Inuyasha's mind. Miroku was finished with washing his upper body, which left only... His lower body. A fiercer blush spread over Inuyasha's cheeks and he moved instinctively backwards. He heard the soft, dejected sigh. He wanted to calm down, wanted to stop his body from shaking, wanted to.. damn, stop the tears flowing from his eyes and down to cool his blush heated skin.

Inuyasha heard the shuffle of feet and the other man getting up. Despite himself he spoke.

"Where are you going?"

There was that sigh again. So defeated, sad and resigned.

_Damn, why must I be so fragile and emotional all the time?_

Inuyasha heard Miroku stand still as the words he then spoke sank in. One word, almost whispered, in a pleading, wavering tone. A word that was the first step forward from the darkness and pain.

"Stay."

Miroku stepped back and Inuyasha buried his head into the folds of his robes. He breathed in shakily, hands gripping the coarse fabric. The monk lay a hand on his head, soothing him. Inuyasha leaned into it, drawing comfort from the gesture. When Miroku withdrew his hands, Inuyasha wiped off his tears and nodded, mumbling. "Just do it.."

Inuyasha blushed fiercely, his whole body shaking as Miroku divested him of his hakama.

The monk was considerate, not saying a word as the hanyo's hips shook, as did his whole body. He was so tense, trying so hard to let it be okay, let Miroku get close to him...

Miroku didn't linger on his task, eyes despite that taking in the horrible scarring that overshadowed how the skin of Inuyasha's upper body looked. He diverted his eyes from even glancing to the deep gashes that were a proof of the unbelievable, savage cruelty done to the one he loved. Averted himself from looking at the deep scars that ran up the inside of the hanyo's pale tights to disappear behind, to places where he'd been violated. He also only saved a quick glance to his nether regions, knowing becoming lusty with anyone was the farthest from the hanyo's mind right now.

He just wrung the cloth again in the wooden bucket and handed it to Inuyasha, turning his back as the hanyo washed his more intimate parts.

There was a rap at the door and Kagome called in. "Do you need more water?"

Miroku looked at the bucket, now realizing he hadn't washed Inuyasha's face at all. He stood up, picking up the bucket and the cloth and went to the door. "Yes, we need some, would you throw this away."

"So did he let you?.." Kagome whispered silently, nudging her head towards the inside of the hut.

"Yes he did. Water?"

"Oh, right."

Miroku lowered the bucket in his hands to the ground and took the small bucket from Kagome's hands. "Thanks." And he disappeared inside.

When he turned he saw that Inuyasha had already put his pants back on and was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Miroku padded to him and put the bucket down. There was already a cloth floating around in the water.

"Inuyasha."

"Hmm?" The hanyo raised his head.

"Your face."

"Right."

Inuyasha peeled the bandages off from his face, the scars not surprising Miroku any more, he'd seen them many times already. He guided Inuyasha's hands to the bucket so he could splash the water on his face while taking a hold of his long mane to keep it from falling to his lover's face. When done Inuyasha dried his face with the towel Miroku offered him. It was one of Kagome's and it felt nice against Inuyasha's skin in all it's fluffiness.

Miroku helped Inuyasha to put on a clean shirt and change into a clean pair of pants and then forced the hanyo to lay down as he looked a bit pale. He also made him eat some broth that had been warming on the cooking are.

"Thank you," he whispered against the hanyo's cheek, pecking it with a kiss as the hanyo had been properly cleaned, changed and fed. Inuyasha just snuggled against him, drifting off to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : contains a non-graphic depiction of rape, some blood, dis figuration

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

**Chapter Ten**

A little over three months had now passed since Naraku's attack on Inuyasha.

The sakura trees had been in full bloom then. He mused how he'd never really appreciated the beauty of nature. His brother had always been the more refined and tranquil of the two of them, the one who had raised beauty almost over all else.

And now he would never see the beauty of sakura blossoms, the winding patterns in which the pale pink petals danced in the breeze as they fell from the trees before the leaves would take their place replacing pink with shades of green. It was odd how such things surfaced in brief almost disjointed flashes in his mind, he had not lost so much as he'd thought when he'd finally realized he would be blind for life.

Snippets of memory flitted through the painful one's. How he'd woken after his 50 year slumber, the vivid greens of the forest, the blurry image of the girl in front of him. The arrogant but royal smirk on his brother's lips whenever they crossed paths. The hatred in Kikyo's eyes when she'd thought he'd betrayed her.

But he couldn't remember Miroku's face. A string of memories of how the monk was in battle, of his ever wandering hands, the way his robes occasionally hung to his frame, outlining his shapely ass. That he remembered. But nothing of the monk's face.

It was gone.

All he had were inconsistent flashes of memory. Images connecting to nothing, fragments archived by his inattentive mind. Trivial things, all of them.

He knew he should have been happy to be alive, to have Miroku beside him. To be able to touch him, feel him, hear him, smell him even if he couldn't see him. To be able to love him. And be loved back. Still, something was amiss. Something he couldn't pinpoint. It bothered him to no end.

Sighing, he let it go.

There were other worries now, other paths. His life had been violently shaken and he was picking up the pieces, his most pressing concern, and Miroku's too, right now was for him to get better.

It had been two weeks ago that he'd recovered from his fever. He was still very weak, but not as much as he'd been the first few week after the fever had gone down. It had almost burned him up, leaving him fragile, his health still in tatters.

And Miroku had been so wonderful during these weeks, supporting him unquestioningly. He still woke to nightmare's during some nights. Miroku was always there to soothe away his tears, reminding him he wasn't alone. It made him feel special. A feeling he had not often experienced.

The gentle breeze on his skin felt so nice.

Inuyasha was happy Miroku had finally dragged him out from the cramped air of the hut. The outside felt nice. The voices of the village mixed into a soothing murmur. But he still flinched as a hand descended on his shoulder. He'd been too engrossed in his thoughts to hear who it was, his guard down in the peaceful atmosphere of the village.

"Inuyasha."

The monk's voice was soft, soothing. It was nice to see Inuyasha outside of the hut. He'd goaded his lover out and sat him down on a bench outside of Kaede's hut, leaving him there for a moment to go and ask where their friends were.

The hanyo's reaction saddened the monk. That even here, where Inuyasha was safe, he was still so jumpy, so scared. Haunted by the nightmares of his recent past. His spirit broken. But who could have expected those wounds to heal so soon?

"Miroku... I was in my thoughts, sorry."

The apology still sounded odd, coming from the once brash and almost uncaring hanyo. He was timid and shy now, subdued. Miroku doubted if he would ever be able to heal the wounds in his hanyo's heart.

"Come," Miroku offered a hand to Inuyasha, grasping his in a firm grip, "the others are by the creek."

Inuyasha stood up, sagging against Miroku, still weak after the intense fever he'd recovered from. It had been weeks but still the weakness, the tiredness remained. Kaede suspected that it was poison. Naraku's poison still lingering in his body after all this time, hindering his recovery.

"Lean on to me," the monk offered, providing extra support by putting his hand around the hanyo's waist.

Inuyasha blushed a pale shade of red as the hand steadied and supported his weight. He could feel the touch through his clothes, the reassurance that Miroku offered, and despite the nature of the act, the intimacy it in some level hinted at.

And the tint on his cheeks deepened even more as they walked.

It seemed that perviness ran thick in Miroku's veins. The hand supporting Inuyasha soon started to slide downwards as they walked, finally stopping to softly rub and squeeze at Inuyasha's butt.

Inuyasha did feel nice at first.

Then the images began to flood his mind, the laughter ringing in his ears, drowning all other voices around him.

The hand was still there, heat radiating from it, inwardly he drew away.

_'Dirty little hanyo. You really aren't good for anything else than this? Hmm? You like this? Like having me inside of you?' The fingers that had extended to claws sank into the supple flesh._

Inuyasha flinched.

'He's not in my head, he'd not in my head!', his thoughts ran in a disjointed mumble, images slithering through the noise. Those mad eyes entirely too close for comfort. The pain, the unbearable pain. Helplessness.

'Stop, stop. I want it to stop. No!'

He threw his head back, flinching again.

"Please, don't..." Inuyasha almost moaned, the words whispered pleadingly and urgent. The quality of his voice broke Miroku's heart and he realized what he'd been doing. He hastily withdrew his hand, once again settling it to on the curve of Inuyasha's waist.

"I'm sorry," he hushed, warmly squeezing the hand that he held in his.

Inuyasha nodded shakily, the images in his mind fading, the voice faltering and then disappearing.

"I'm just...", Inuyasha breathed in a whisper, voice still faltering a bit.

"I know," Miroku squeezed Inuyasha against himself in a hug. Inuyasha sniffed softly against his chest and finally calmed himself.

But how could they ever hope to build a relationship when almost every intimate touch affected him so, the hanyo mused. He cursed himself inwardly. Then he cursed the bastard to every hell he could think of.

The monk and the hanyo soon came to the others, having manoeuvred through the bustle of the village.

Inuyasha heard the running of the stream, the sound of birds in the trees and the splashing and the high pitched squeals. The grass rustled under their feet.

"Kagome and Shippo seem to be playing in the stream," Miroku informed his lover as he guided him down the river bank to where their friends had set down for the day under a tree.

The monk observed Sango sitting down in the shadow of the tree. A blanket had been spread to the ground and various items, mainly food from Kagome's time were strewn all over. The demon exterminator was sitting with Kirara on her lap. She watched her friends amiably, her hiraikotsu still at the ready right beside her should she need it.

"Inuyasha!" An exited feminine voice greeted the hanyo as the others saw him. It was Kagome.

"Good morning Inuyasha! Come and sit down." Sango offered.

Inuyasha was soon seated down beside Sango who offered him something Kagome had brought with her from her time.

They were called 'crackers'.

Inuyasha accepted the offered food and munched on the salty cookies. He was happily surprised when, mid-munching, Miroku's mouth sought out his in a kiss. Seemed the monk wanted his share of the salty snacks too.

Kagome watched her friends kiss from the water. She wasn't jealous, Inuyasha was one of her closest friends and deserved a bit of happiness. Then she spotted an all too familiar whirlwind from the corner of her eye and frowned in concern and a bit in irritation. The young girl hastily rose from the water wrapping a towel around herself to cover her bathing suit.

Kouga was coming.

Miroku noticed Kagome getting up from the water and looked at her questioningly, then he too noticed the approaching wolf demon and drew Inuyasha in an embrace against his side, shielding him.

The wolf prince stopped short in front of Kagome. She felt his eyes roam all over her body, appreciating the moistness glistening on her uncovered limbs.

"Hi Kouga," she greeted him. Behind her she heard the rustle of clothing and a frightened gasp. But Kouga seemed to have eyes for her only. They had not met in months and she the funny thing was that she had not even noticed his absence from her life.

"Hi Kagome."

"_Kukuku... Inuyasha..."_

After having ogled at Kagome sufficiently Kouga took notice of the others.

The demon exterminator was sitting on a blanket, hard eyes focused on him, absently stroking the fire cat demon on her lap. Beside her was the monk... and could it be, hiding behind the monk was Inuyasha!

The half-breed mutt wasn't wearing his usual attire of red but was garbed in simple dark trousers and a white shirt, and he didn't have Tessaiga.

But why was the hanyo covering behind the monk?

"What's the matter, mutt-face? Scared?" Kouga brushed beside Kagome who in vain tried to halter him by grabbing his hand.

Miroku shielded his shaking lover behind him, his left hand reaching for his staff beside him. "Leave him alone, Kouga!" the monk spat out.

_'Worthless stupid half-breed. I wonder why your brother hasn't killed you yet. You like that? Like being submissive? Like---'_

"Kouga, please..", Kagome pleaded, still trying to stop him.

"NO!", Kouga brushed her off. "I want to know what makes mutt-face cover from me." He could smell that the other was frightened. Scared out of his wits actually. And there was the scent of lingering sickness around him and something... what was it?

_'That's it. You like that, you dirty little bastard? Like me in you? Like to have your insides shredded to pieces?' The hands were all over him, inflicting pain. Ripped from the inside, not even the respite of unconsciousness having mercy on him, his body still feeling. _

Inuyasha's scared whimpers wrenched at Kagome's heart. She once again tried to plead with the stubborn wolf prince. "Kouga! Leave him be!". She slipped on the slope, scrambling down on her knees. With horror she watched the scene unfolding in front of her.

_'Dirty, I'm dirty... No, want, want.. No! Miroku. I need Miroku... Can't ... Please don't hurt me! Please?...' _

_'Not hurt you? But why, that would not suit my purposes. Not suit them at all. My precious little slut, I'm just going to make you scream just that little bit more. Until you can't scream any more. And then I'm leaving you to die. You'll not see your human ever again.' _

_The visage over him grinned evilly, madly. Enjoying every single painful breath that he took, every raspy plea, every single tear. And it was the last thing that he saw as unmerciful claws slashed at his eyes, the squelching noise having been sickening if he hadn't already been past that point. The pain was unbearable. He screamed._

Kouga was already by Miroku's side and grabbed the hanyo's hand to draw him into his line of vision. Inuyasha led out a piercing, pained scream. Kouga was only haltered, however, when a jingling staff hit his legs. His hand still holding Inuyasha's pulled the hanyo in his line of vision as he stumbled down.

Tumbling on the grass, the hanyo scraped his palms. Kouga had landed on his behind, and was now staring at the hanyo.

Inuyasha just lay there, leaning on his hands, clawed fingers splayed on the ground below him, shoulders shaking violently. Breath coming in painful gasps around sobs and broken, disjointed words tumbling from his lips.

He was completely out of it.

Kouga had seen a glimpse of the bandages covering Inuyasha's eyes before his white mane had descended down to cover his face.

"Is he blind?", he blurted out.

Miroku gathered the shaken hanyo in his embrace, hands running soothing circles over his back, murmuring words of comfort into his ear. Inuyasha lay his head against his lovers chest and sobbed to his robes, hating his brittle composure. Miroku glared daggers ta Kouga from over Inuyasha's shoulder. His intention towards Kouga was clear, 'leave, or else'.

Kouga's eyes widened at the intimate way the monk and the hanyo acted together. He involuntarily snorted.

And the next instant a loud smack rung across the clearing, scattering the birds from the trees.

Kouga stumbled back, holding a hand over his reddened cheek. Kagome had never hit him before. He just looked at her in shock. Behind her he could see the demon exterminator now weighing her weapon with a glint in her eye.

Kagome was fuming. She finally extended her hand again, smacked Kouga on his other cheek and dragged him up the river bend. She lead him away from the village and the curious eyes of the inhabitants. A few were looking in concern to where they'd come from but seemed to believe what ever had made someone scream it seemed to have been the wolf demon.

"How could you?", Kagome hissed while walking in angry strides, her other hand shaking so badly that she almost couldn't hold her towel up. "He's been injured, and then you just snort at him because he's found love!? Yes, he's blind! Blind because he was attacked! He's suffered too much that I'd let you make him suffer even more! How _could_ you???" She smacked both of his cheeks this time.

Kouga finally came to himself and halted her hand by gripping her wrist, making Kagome wince.

"Stop it! What's with him anyway?"

Kagome's face grew sad. She decided to just say it, Kouga would find out eventually anyway. Best to get it out now, it might make Kouga understand Inuyasha's anguish better. Even maybe make him treat her friend a bit better.

"He was attacked by Naraku... He was alone. Naraku used poison and.. and..", she gulped and tried to force the tears away, the events still fresh in her mind. "Naraku blinded Inuyasha... and he, he raped him."

She took a step back after having spoken, hugging herself, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had not forgotten the sight of Inuyasha laying motionless on the ground. She had not told Inuyasha, but she had seen the deep gashes, the blood flowing down his thighs, his abused body. She knew what had happened to him, knew he'd been violated, raped.

A hand tentatively wound around her shoulders. She tensed. But in the end she let Kouga hug her.

"I.. I didn't know. You know me and mutt---, Inuyasha, we throw insults. I shouldn't have ..."

"You weren't to know."

"Shh.. It's okay now..."

"I..."

Miroku kissed him lovingly. In that one instant Inuyasha wondered how his body didn't panic at the gesture, it had to be because Naraku hadn't, despite the living hell he'd made him go through, kissed him. And to Inuyasha a kiss was such an important thing now that he was blind. It told him of the love he couldn't experience through casual glances.

They only had words and kisses, and touches but he was still too skittish for them yet.

"Shh. Kagome took him away to tell him off."

"I just... I could hear _him_ in my head..." Tears escaped from beneath his bandages. "Could feel him. All over. Everything, his putrid voice. As he..." And his voice broke.

"Don't try to remember, just let it be."

Inuyasha took a few moments to calm himself in his lovers embrace, burying his face into the fabric of Miroku's robes. Loosing himself into the feeling of the other being there. When he spoke it was only with a small tremor in his voice.

"It was just... My head screamed demon and all went downhill from there."

"It's to be expected. This was the first time, after... that you met a youkai."

"Yeah. But damn. It irks the hell out of me! That it all comes... back. It scares me," he admitted, gripping Miroku's robes, holding the other as close as possible.

Miroku smiled. It seemed the old Inuyasha was surfacing. He'd missed the brash words of the hanyo, the indignant tone. But he didn't care for the self-loathing that seemed to creep into the hanyo's words again right after. He'd been doing so well these past weeks of recovery.

Seemed to be taking Miroku fully into his heart. Letting him see beneath the surface and observe a young and carefree person who'd desperately sought for love all his life. To whom it was important. And who had, as the hanyo had confided in him, found it in him, in Miroku.

The thought warmed him. And in himself he'd found restraints he hadn't know he possessed. He couldn't have imagined trying to refrain from sexual advances when he now finally had the hanyo to himself. But it proved that it was indeed love, didn't it. He knew how shaken his lover still was after what had happened to him and respected that. What had taken place earlier had been unconscious but now he vowed to keep himself firmer in check.

His lover didn't need a reason to start to grow weary of him whenever he was around. They needed trust between them. Inuyasha needed to know he could count on Miroku.

He needed safety.

And so the monk just held his lover, comforting him, soothing him.


	11. Chapter 11

Warnings:contains a depiction (non graphic!) of rape and some gore, quite mild, shounen-ai

Rated M for the emotionally heavy themes this fic contains.

Thanks go to my darling beta Caitriona!

Chapter Eleven

"He smells like a bitch just out of heat."

Kagome spun around and slapped Kouga's cheek. The way he had said it, just noting it, ignoring how it might sound to her; it made Inuyasha sound... well, insulting him. And why had he said such a thing? It surely couldn't be true, could it? She hadn't heard right, had she? Kagome played the words around in her head. It just _couldn't be..._

But Kouga's tone had been honest. Kagome blanched.

Then she grew very, very still.

Her eyes widened as she let herself understand and digest the terrible implications behind Kouga's words. The ookami had not really considered the meaning of what he'd said, just probably saying the words as the thought crossed his mind, but_she_ clearly saw that her friend still wasn't rid of Naraku's evil. Kagome understood there was a terrible truth, which Kouga's words had made painstakingly clear.

No wonder there were still symptoms no-one could explain. Symptoms which couldn't be dispelled by Miroku's sutras as they had continued even when the poison lost it's potency, hiding in Inuyasha's demonic blood. It had been a few days since his last human night, and the few remains of the poison still persistently lingering had seemed to recede as Miroku had told had happened the last time, but the poison seemed to be diluting and slowly disappearing even when the sickness hadn't.

A sickness none of Kaede's remedies seemed to cure; the persistent tiredness, the queasiness, light-headedness, the wear on Inuyasha's body. It seemed the hanyou had gotten no rest since Naraku's attack.

Kagome worried her lip, trying hard not to fall apart completely. It seemed so unfair! And maybe, just maybe, Kouga had been mistaken. It was a slim hope to cling to, a mere fickle chance.

"Hey, you all right?" Kouga asked Kagome softly, scenting her distress.

"Please, please say to me that it isn't so..." She turned her teary eyes to stare deep within his. Her look wrenched at Kouga's heart and he embraced her. But it did nothing to soothe her as the sobs started to wrack her body.

And only then did Kouga himself fully understand what he'd said. _"__ He smells like a bitch just out of heat.__"_Hell, even if the hanyou was an idiot, no one should be made to go through that. He hugged Kagome comfortingly.

"I'm sorry, but he does smell like he's carrying."

The girl grabbed onto him tightly, as if her life itself would ebb away if she let go. She didn't want to believe it, it was just too cruel to imagine. _How can I tell this to Inuyasha, how can such a thing be told? He can't rid himself of it, it's gone too far already. And all this time he's suffered and it's not nearing an end. And Miroku, oh, what will he say?_

The wolf prince held her for a long time till her tears finally dried. But her heart was heavy in her chest, a new found coldness and despair had settled within. She let him lead her back to her friends as if in a trance. The wolf prince helped her through the edges of the village and back to the bank where they'd left the panicking hanyou, his lover, the demon exterminator and the fox kit.

Kagome just followed after him, putting one heavy leg in front of the other, stumbling, but Kouga always held her up. She wasn't even crying, she was blank as if denied of all emotions.

_I must tell Inuyasha, I must. It's horrible_ Kagome felt hollow.

They neared the others with every heavy step Kagome took, guided by the wolf demon's strong arms on her shoulders, holding her up.

She could hear the others chatting amiably, Inuyasha's brush of fear seemingly having already subsided. He seemed so happy. And it was that which affected her the most.

Suddenly, Kagome froze on the spot. She couldn't hear the voices of her friends any more; they were muffled by the screaming in her head. Numbness spread through her bones as an iron grip seemed to surround her heart. But she had to tell him, even if the truth would shatter whatever strength and composure he'd regained. The truth was better out than in.

But she couldn't, just couldn't.

Kagome heard softly padding steps. They broke through her sudden deafness and she shook her head, focusing her gaze to the people nearing her. It was Inuyasha, lead by Miroku, with Sango and Shippo in tow and Kirara winding her tail around the woman's ankles.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, looking distressed. Miroku must have told him how distraught she undoubtedly looked. He could probably also smell the tears and her agony. "What's the bastard done to you?" The familiar timbre of indignant and protective arrogance rung in his voice. It had been completely dormant, and now a smidgeon crept back in at his question. But it was there, and she would shatter it.

"Hey, I didn't _do_ anything!" Kouga cried out indignantly,"We just talked and I said that---" He stopped mid-sentence as Kagome nudged him hard on the ribs.

Kagome noted how Inuyasha tried to seem harsh but how his grip on Miroku's hand was so firm that it must be hurting the monk. She never saw him even wince. How would the monk react to her news? More importantly, how would Inuyasha react?

It would crush him, the knowing. The truth. The living result of the violence done to him.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha laid his other hand on her arm, comforting. She could feel how he shook, just perceivably.

"I'm..." Kagome started to say as her mind cried out '_I can't, I can't!'. _

Kouga rubbed her shoulders gently. He was oddly quiet. Seemed he'd put two and two together and figured out what had made her to loose composure.

"I have to tell you something, Inuyasha," Kagome said in a hushed tone. She could feel the shaking of his hand increase just a bit. Inuyasha seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable in the youkai's presence. His breath had also picked up a shaky quality. The tears were coming back into her eyes. _How can I?_

"What's wrong?" It was Miroku, who eyed Kouga hostilely, his staff ready in one hand should the ookami try something to upset his emotionally fragile lover even more than he already was. "Kagome, tell us. What is it?"

"I... Kouga says that he smells... "

Inuyasha withdrew his hand and Miroku drew him against his side in a one armed embrace.

"What does he say he smells?" Inuyasha's voice cracked and Kagome thought sadly how he must hate himself for it.

"He says that you smell," she swallowed, "Like you, like you - - -"

Kouga beat her to the punch and just announced how things were in his brusque, direct way. "You smell like you're carrying."

"Carrying...?"

Kagome saw through the veil of her tears how Inuyasha's mouth dropped in horror and he wrapped his arms around himself. The truth slowly seeped in, like the tendrils of poison.

"A child. That bastard knocked you up." The ookami said, his voice having none of the condescending qualities it usually had while he talked to the hanyou. It seemed he felt sorry for him.

"NO!!!" Inuyasha's cry of denial was heart breaking. He was scared again, utterly lost. Hurt. Before anyone could say or do anything Inuyasha wrenched himself away from Miroku and ran for the forest. The others stood still in shock. And then turned to stare at Kouga.

"What?".

"Couldn't have softened the blow, could you?" Sango asked icily, being the first to regain her voice. She extended her hand and slapped Kouga on the cheek opposite Kagome's earlier strike.

"Kagome wasn't getting it out and it's better he heard it from me, he'll hate whomever it was that told him. Better he hate me than her, he's already doing so."

"But still, _you_! Is it even true?" The taijiya saved the ookami a scathing look before turning her head towards Kagome. Sango searched for the truth in Kagome's eyes. The young girl avoided her but nodded, only slightly moving her head. Tears were streaming in rivulets from her eyes. She was sagging against Kouga, who held a protecting arm around her.

"It's all over him, no doubt about it," Kouga verbally confirmed the taijiya's suspicions.

Kagome crumpled to the ground beside him, crying desperately. "How can he bear it? How can he... It isn't fair! He shouldn't be... He's.." She wailed, words coming in between the sobs and gasps.

Sango knelt by her, hugging her around the shoulders. She understood that Kouga had been blunt for her benefit and had spared her from Inuyasha's hate towards the bearer of such ill news. But the end result was still the same, Kagome in mental anguish and Inuyasha probably distraught indicated by his running off.

The taijiya sighed in worry, the hanyou's health was too fragile for such escapades, and he couldn't defend himself. She couldn't very well leave the crying girl behind to care for her hanyou friend. The one who should have done it in the first place, well...

"Inuyasha..." Miroku finally breathed out. His staff clinked as it fell to the ground and there was a dull thud as he fell to his knees, dazed.

_He probably needs a moment alone with his thoughts, _ Sango mused, casting a small prayer for the safety of that reverie.

Inuyasha lay on the forest floor in a heap. His whole body shook with uncontrollable, violent tears and he wailed loudly.

He hated himself for it, but after the initial shock and disgust wore off a part of him had become happy. He'd have family. Even if the child was from that bastard it was also his. _My own flesh and blood. Famil__y...'_

"Hello, otoutou."

Inuyasha froze. He was so absorbed in his own misery that he jumped at the sudden collected and cold voice. It was Sesshomaru.

The youkai lord curiously took in his brother's appearance, the bandages, the way he got up very slowly, his body worn and weary. His younger half-brother seemed to be on the verge of collapse, the hands he'd extended to push himself up to a sitting position, shaking.. Then the faintly sweet scent hit him.

"Whose is it?" He demanded, his tone even.

Inuyasha's scent spiked up, the fear thick in him. There was an old, underlying smell too. An old smell coming from wounds already healed and one's that were yet to heal completely. The scent could only be explained by a smidgeon of poison running through his blood. Only now did Sesshoumaru focus on the fact that his brother's eyes were covered. It disturbed him.

Their relationship had always been complex, love hidden behind rash words and violent actions. They had been too torn apart by their father's death, by everything that had happened since but they loved each other, as brothers do. And now Sesshoumaru was looking at his brother, sadness filling his heart, regret at it's heels for not having been there when Inuyasha had needed him.

Sesshomaru's voice grew very silent. There was sadness hiding somewhere under his still even tone. "You were violated, were you?" Inuyasha was still, too still for Sesshomaru's liking. It was as if his brother had been replaced, snatched away and been replaced with this shadow of his self.

Inuyasha heard the shuffle of silk as Sesshomaru knelt beside him. His struggle to get up ceased momentarily and he opted to slouch down to sit, his body weary. But he still flinched almost habitually, old fear running deep.

"Otoutou, who was it?" Sesshoumaru wound long fingers through his brother's abundant mane of silver in soothing movements. He wanted his brother to calm down, seeing him so afraid was very disorienting.

Inuyasha felt some comfort from the touch, perhaps because Sesshoumaru was his brother. He steeled himself, swallowed his hiccups, and spoke. The words were forced through his gritted teeth, almost unbearable for him to vocalize. "It was Naraku."

Inuyasha heard his brother swallow a breath. It was almost imperceptible but to Inuyasha it spoke volumes.

"Your eyes..." Inuyasha felt his brother gently press on the bandages, the curve of his palm resting against his cheek.

"They won't heal. If they would, it would've already happened. Too much of the bastard's poison. Too ripped apart." There were tears in his voice now, but he didn't care any more. At this stage he was too tired to put up any façade for his brother. And so he let the tears fall, let them dampen the bandages, coming down his cheeks murked with the remaining poison.

Inuyasha sensed Sesshoumaru bending closer to him, sniffing him.

"You have... an intended?"

Inuyasha wondered at how level Sesshoumaru's query was. They'd never spoken of it, but Inuyasha knew his future mate had to be approved by his brother. He couldn't very well sully their bloodline, now could he? But it had already happened. He shuddered and tried to remember Miroku's acceptance, his comfort.

"Don't fret, brother. I will not chase him away." Sesshoumaru took another, confirming sniff. "The monk? How surprising. And the life within you, how does he take to that, will you rid yourself?"

"He just found out. It's too late to do anything, isn't it? It's too far along. I know that much, even if I'm male... I'm still too weak, would probably die. And I..."

"I know what you mean. It's of your blood. Even I..." There was a pause, but Sesshomaru didn't elaborate. "I understand," he continued,"Come, brother. Let's not worry those you left behind."

And so he just simply picked Inuyasha up and started to carry him back. The arm Inuyasha had hacked off when they had fought after having been released from his 50 year slumber held him in a steady grip, having grown back after some time had passed. That fight had been their last serious attempt to harm one another, a last foray into their earlier brash relationship.

"You really shouldn't have exerted yourself so, otoutou. I can see you're still weak."

"Giving me a lecture, oniisan?"

Sesshoumaru smiled, it was a long time ago that Inuyasha had last called him that. It felt good to hear it again. It was moments like these that showed the connection they had. One they'd always had. They were brothers, and even if they didn't act like they actually cared, they still did. Inuyasha let his brother's steady heartbeat calm him. He was glad of his brother's help; he did feel just a bit faint. _That's what you get for running around after barely having recovered..._, his mind chastised him.

He closed his eyes and let the comfort of his brother's nearness lull him into a half sleep. The youkai's steady, strong heart beat anchoring him, telling him it was okay. He was safe.

Inuyasha was snapped of his near stupor by a clear, agitated voice.

"Inuyasha!"

It was Miroku.

Inuyasha heard the rustle of fast approaching steps and felt his brother halt. Sesshoumaru also steadied his grip, seeming almost possessive. Inuyasha's breath hitched.

"Relax, otoutou, he is acceptable. I won't hinder you." Sesshoumaru murmured into the hanyou's ear. He lowered his brother to the ground and Inuyasha felt another pair of strong arms encircle him as Miroku grabbed him in a fierce hug. He smelled the human's tears. He'd made him worry. Inuyasha shook his head as his hearing started to buzz. He felt a bit unsteady.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" He heard his lover inquire quizzically. The monk's hold on him never loosened; he didn't seem to intend to let him go any time soon.

"He's all right," Inuyasha assured him.

Inuyasha shook his head again. He didn't like the feeling of the slowly accumulating dizziness? He felt a twinge in his gut and gasped softly. It was too low for Miroku to register. His brother seemed not to have heard either.

"Why isn't he trying to kill us?" Miroku whispered into his hair in an undertone. Inuyasha sagged against him more, just faintly feeling Miroku steady him. Something wasn't right. He could feel another tug at his stomach and inhaled softly, hand gripping Miroku's robes. Inuyasha could feel his fingers slipping on the coarse substance, no strength left in them.

"You are acceptable as Inuyasha's intended. Protect him." The lord of the western lands said in his usual royal, arrogant voice.

Inuyasha didn't register even half of it. He drew in a strained breath that did nothing to alleviate the haze in his head, instead bringing bile up his throat. The hanyou coughed and croaked out "Miro---..." He collapsed in Miroku's arms, unconscious.


	12. Chapter 12

Author : Saraste

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : M because of adult themes like Inuyasha's rape

Warnings : disfiguration, MPREG

- - - -

Miroku was carrying Inuyasha into Kaede's hut, walking in quick, long strides. The others trailed behind him, equally worried by the hanyo's sudden collapse as he was.

They were questioning the monk, each other. Kagome was in hysterics, Kouga and Sango having to keep her upright and half carry her.

Sesshoumaru kept his stoic, cold mask on but it was cracking. He kept glancing at his brother.

"I should never have let him go off on his own like that," Miroku reprimanded himself under his breath, laying worried glances on his beloveds face. The pale face didn't answer his unvoiced questions, nor allay the worry gnawing at him.

Sesshoumaru was striding side by side with the monk. "There's poison in his blood. Naraku's poison. I can smell it. Why hasn't it been removed? It's weakened him."

"We have tried! It hides in his demon blood," Miroku answered, hurrying his steps.

"We all tried, even my knowledge of poisons didn't help," Sango pitched in from by Kagome's side, "even Kagome's miko powers didn't help pure it or even lure it into his human blood so Miroku could have help purify it."

There was s soft moan from Inuyasha and his eyelids fluttered, but did not open.

"He's bleeding...," Sesshoumaru murmured in an undertone, his eyes growing grim.

"I know...," said Miroku worriedly, feeling the dampness spread through the cloth and stain his sleeves. If Inuyasha was bleeding, then it could only mean one thing.

Miscarriage.

_'Well good riddance, I say...Naraku's evil has already hurt Inuyasha enough for one lifetime.' _

That thought, as it came into his head, disturbed Miroku but it was buried under his worry and all consuming fear for Inuyasha's life.

Not too soon they burst inside Kaede's hut where she was tending to some child's sprained ankle, lucky for them already binding it. She was just tying the knot when they burst in.

"Kaede-sama, he's bleeding!"

"Miroku?... Sesshoumaru- sama?"

The old miko quickly took stock of the situation and steered the mother and child toward the door, past the motley assembly.

"Go on, and keep your weight off that leg." Kaede instructed the girl and her mother as they exited the hut.

"Place him down," she said to the monk as she turned. She wasn't ruffled to see the hanyo's brother present, with the worry cracking through his stoic mask she could see that the youkai lord truly cared for his brother.

Miroku laid Inuyasha down gently, the girls were huddling on the entrance to the hut, Kouga winding his arms around Kagome's shoulders.

"Maybe we should leave..," Kouga suggested. Kagome looked at him, it was clear she wanted to stay, but as she glanced at Sango the taijiya shook her head. And so they sat down to wait just outside the hut, Shippo and Kirara joining them.

The inside of the hut was in a frenzy.

"He's pregnant!" Miroku announced to the disbelieving old woman as the mother and child, and all of their friends were out of the door. _Please, Buddha, let him get through this unscathed..._

Kaede gasped softly, uttering an uncharacteristic exclamation under her breath. She was already examining Inuyasha, opening his robes. She extended a hand and unceremoniously stuffed a stack of linen bandages between his legs as soon as she gripped them from a near-by shelf.

Inuyasha sifted and stirred with a low moan escaping his lips. "Miroku?..."

"I'm here," the monk squeezed his lovers hand, kissing the hanyo's clammy brow.

The hanyo grimaced as his insides twisted, his body giving in, too weak to protect the life he now knew he carried within him. _'No!',_ his thoughts raged as the meaning of the pain became clear to him.

"I'm losing the baby...," he whispered, hand gripping the covers he lay on as pain wrecked through his body. He could practically sense the life inside of him fading by the second. His hand went over to his stomach, curling over it protectively, gripping the fabric of his loose shirt as pain shot through him.

Miroku flinched as Inuyasha spoke, he had not believed that his lover would choose to keep the child. Naraku's child. The hanyo sounded so panicked, so pained. As the realization hit him, Miroku wasn't able to conceal his reaction, or the slightest sliver of disgust marring his face for a fraction of a second.

His reaction wasn't missed by Sesshoumaru's alert eyes. Seeing as his brother had not seen the flinch he opted to speak out "The monk wishes you to lose the child, otoutou..." Sesshoumaru murmured quietly.

The next gasp coming from Inuyasha's throat wasn't that of physical pain but of mental. He sounded so dejected.

"No!" Miroku shouted out, trying desperately to search for words. He knew a wrong action now would set him back months in his relationship with Inuyasha, if the hanyo deigned to have any relationship with him any more should he let his disgust for Naraku and any child the bastard had fathered rule him.

The monk and youkai stared at each other over the hanyo's reclining form, challenging the other. "Inuyasha, I...," the human stammered, cursing inwardly as he couldn't get words out quickly enough.

"It's my baby...," Inuyasha choked out, his voice filled with tears, anguish and love.

Miroku kissed him softly and gently. "I know...," he whispered, not completely believing his own words, but knowing it was something the other needed to hear. "I love you.."

Inuyasha gasped in pain and began a litany of "No, please", under his breath as his insides rebelled. "Kaede... please," there was raw need and inescapable sorrow lacing his voice as he pleaded the miko.

_I can't lose the child, I won't!_

Another wave of pain shot through Inuyasha and he grabbed Miroku's hand, squeezing it tightly enough to make the monk wince. He let go and felt Miroku's hand land over the one he kept over his abdomen, lacing their fingers, making him release his death grip on the fabric of his shirt.

Miroku squeezed Inuyasha's hand comfortingly, giving a tender kiss to his brow.

"What is taking your time, miko?" Sesshoumaru demanded as another painful gasp escaped Inuyasha's lips and he sought out to grip his brothers hand in a vice. All colour had long drained off his face, the ashen paleness unsettling. Kaede was busy by the fire, mixing herbs into a cup of hot water.

The old miko came to them and knelt by the hanyo's head.

"Drink this," she ordered, lifting Inuyasha's head and helping him drink the hot liquid down. Inuyasha sputtered at the bad taste. "It should help," Kaede said as changed the already crimson stained bandages stemming the blood coming from his nether regions. "But you may still lose the child," she warned, having seen the look of hope in Inuyasha's face at her words.

"It'll be all right...," Miroku whispered to his lover, trying to allay his fear. To give him hope, however much false it might prove out to be. He couldn't let his lover fall into that black pit of despair again. Not even if it meant that Inuyasha was carrying the child of the one who'd assaulted and broken him.

The old miko got up, sighing wearily. To her, it would be better should he be rid of the child. For what child of Naraku's would ever do any good?

Then she reprimanded herself, had not numerous examples shown to her that bad could be swayed, that evil didn't always reign fully in the hearts of different beings, that salvation could be earned. And what evil had this unborn child done to have to deserve being shunned before it had even seen the light of day? Not one of them should judge it simply by the way it had been conceived.

Miroku was suffering from the same kind of thoughts.

He shamed his first reaction at the mere thought of Inuyasha losing the child: relief. It had went against all he'd been taught. The child was blameless, it was the thought of it having been conceived through so much pain and humiliation that got to him, and that the other parent was Naraku. But it was part of Inuyasha. And he could, should not lay blame on the innocent.

And deny it as he might want to, losing the child whom he fought to keep could psossibly destroy Inuyasha.

Miroku placed a tentative kiss on Inuyasha's brow under the watching eyes of Sesshoumaru and whispered "I'm sorry" into the hanyo's furred ear.

He received a weak smile in response.

_'Please, let me keep the baby...'_

Kaede finished tucking Inuyasha under a blanket, his bandages changed and the old one's on their way of being disposed of. She returned to her herbs and mixed another cocktail of medicine for the hanyo to drink. This time Miroku helped to lift Inuyasha's head, helping him down the medicine.

The old miko looked at the hanyo sadly, she could tell the hanyo was determined to keep the baby. His jaw was set and he was keeping his lips tightly shut to block out the cries of pain, not quite able to stop the quiet whimpers. Miroku was running his hands through his hair and Sesshoumaru was keeping his free hand in his, not even wincing his brother's steel grip.

She was striving to keep both, if not one alive. Nor even certain if Inuyasha would survive with his corroded health.

"I should have stopped you...," Miroku whispered, gently running his fingers through his lover's hair, "I shouldn't have let you dash into the woods like that."

"He exerted himself?" Kaede inquired.

Well that explained it, the strain had been too much for the hanyo's worn body and had resulted in this. She knew what she still had to say, but was reluctant. "Inuyasha," she said calmly, "I've helped you all I can, but you do understand that it might not be enough? Your body is still too weak. It might not be enough..."

Inuyasha turned his head to the voice, silent tears streaming down from underneath the bandages over his eyes "Please, do what you can. I don't want to lose... the baby..." His voice drooped and unconsciousness claimed him.

"Inuyasha? Inuyasha?!" Miroku all but shook his lover, turning to Kaede in panic.

"Do not fret, houshi-sama. It's just the medicine I gave him. He needs much rest. I do hope I was in time and my care is enough."

They all shared the grim thought: would Inuyasha survive this? And if he lost the baby, how would it affect him?

Miroku kept vigil on his lovers side, watching the subtle rise and fall of his chest, hand holding his hand and eyes occasionally settling on the hanyo's other hand splayed protectively over his stomach.

The others were let in under the watchful eyes of Sesshoumaru who had stayed, hovering on the edges of the hut, a constant presence.

Kagome sat next to them, looking at Miroku's worried face. "How is he?" she asked tentatively.

The monk choked back a sob.

And then the girls hands were around him as she hugged him.

"Oh Miroku...,"she whispered.

"Kaede said he might lose the child and that he... his health...," but he couldn't go on.

"He might die," Kaede said from where she was sitting on the other side of Inuyasha. She looked tired, old and worried. For her, the group of friends had become like the children she'd never had. And she had seen Inuyasha go through so much pain already.

None of them knew what to say. They could only hope.

- - - -


	13. Chapter 13

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Warnings : disfiguration, mpreg, angst

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole?

A/N : I can't believe how long I've been writing this one! I checked and I actually got the last chapter out in September of last year or something... Shame on me. But here we are. Return of the DARK angst! Sesshy might seem a bit ooc but I love him as a concerned familycentered aniki. Deal with it.

To my readers: I wish to apologize for this having taken so long. I had some RL issues to battle with in between, money, studying and my health being the most prevalent ones. It all led me to a bad place writing-wise. So here's to you all, finally.

Chapter Thirteen

Despite the grim odds, Inuyasha survived, as did the frail life inside of him.

Kaede confined Inuyasha inside four walls. But it was an almost unnecessary dictation since the hanyou was too weak to move any way.

He was in constant pain for several weeks as the poison in his blood had decided to spike it's attack now that his health was so poor. The poison once again ripped through the old scars of his eyes, making him suffer greatly. Miroku stood by his side and held his hand as the hanyou cried weakly hour after hour as the poison burned already torn flesh.

The stench was sickening.

He was also ailing of a cough that shook his frail body during every long fit. With the worst bouts of coughing every single breath he drew was pain and he coughed up blood mingled with the blackness of the poison.

Kaede was working her hardest to keep him from again developing the high fever that had only weeks ago so nearly claimed his life. If it returned, as it seemed it was about to do, he'd be finished. Inuyasha was too frail, his body too worn with the poison still coursing through his blood to recover a second time.

He fought bravely for the life of his child. Between awake and slumber he repeated Miroku's name constantly, along with 'please'. None could say which was stronger, his will to live or his will to keep his child.

And after weeks of insecurity and hovering between life and death he was starting to regain his health back in slow steps.

Almost four months had passed since the day of Naraku's attack.

Miroku felt a sense of foreboding settle into his heart.

For him, Buddha help him, it seemed that Inuyasha was too centred on the frail life growing inside of him. Far too centred.

And Miroku's heart was wrecked by envy that the child wasn't his. For Inuyasha to carry the child of their worst enemy... It was too much for him to bear. And to know Naraku had taken something precious from both of them. He'd shaken the hanyou to the core, tainting whatever intimacy the pair might have. To know the bastard had touched Inuyasha, even in violence was something Miroku rather not dwell over.

Too much.

But Inuyasha was in too fragile a state to suffer Miroku's absence so he remained by his beloved hanyou's side, the ever loving presence, all the while disgusted with himself for the conflict raging in his heart.

Miroku never left Inuyasha's bedside.

He stayed there through the fever, the crying and the agony over an ever present chance of loss. Through the nightmares which still haunted his beloveds dreams.

And how Miroku hated himself for the thoughts that came unbidden in the night. During Inuyasha's fitful hours of rest, when Miroku held him, his lifeline, the monk found himself disgusted with his thoughts.

For he didn't love the child Inuyasha so desperately fought to keep. Miroku wished for it to be gone so it wouldn't tax Inuyasha's health anymore. It would be the death of Inuyasha.

And who of them knew that the babe wasn't the real reason he was ill? He imagined it spreading the poison through Inuyasha's system, slowly killing it's... what was initially it's 'mother'.

In his head Miroku knew the idea was ludicrous and thoroughly unfounded.

But still...

He only understood the folly of his thoughts, the horrible way his mind had been poisoned by the Evil of Naraku when Inuyasha and the child were finally out of harms way.

Weary but glad that he was finally recuperating and not delirious half the time any more, Inuyasha raised a weak hand to touch his cheek. The words asking for a kiss only in need of being uttered from his chapped lips.

And Miroku flinched away.

Flinched away because Inuyasha was carrying Naraku's child.

The look of utter hurt which spread to Inuyasha's face ripped Miroku's heart open. Tears streamed down under the bandages over damaged eyes. Inuyasha shook his head weakly, gasping, his heart breaking.

"I..." Miroku stammered. Only now did he understand full extend of his madness. The way Naraku's rape on Inuyasha had broken him too. And made him break the hanyou even more with his jealous loathing of the baby.

Inuyasha turned his head away. "You think I'm dirty still, don't you?" he asked, his voice heavy with still unshed tears. "You _hate_ my baby..."

"Inuyasha... I..." Miroku was at a loss for words. Nothing could make right what he'd just done. His rejection, how unconscious it had been and how subtle, had been like an open handed blow to Inuyasha. The hanyou wished the man had hit him, it would have hurt less.

"Get out!" Inuyasha finally yelled, fighting back his tears, his voice full of sadness, anger and dejection. He fell to his covers, coughing. Sobs shaking his still frail recuperating body.

Miroku simply complied. He felt like he wanted to die. The look on Inuyasha's face haunted him even when he closed his eyes. The way his whole face, even without his expressive eyes anymore, had conveyed so much hurt and sorrow. And his voice chilling with raw hurt.

How could he have been so stupid?

He'd _hurt_ Inuyasha, something he'd silently vowed never to do. Riddled with self accusation, he fled to the woods, dropping to his knees and emptying his stomach into the forest floor when. He felt disgusted with himself.

And then he wept. Wept for the cruelty bestowed upon his beloved hanyou. Wept for his own mad stupidity. Wept for the loss of the trust there had been between him and Inuyasha.

Wept for the child who was the product of such impossible cruelty.

Inuyasha was laying awake, hearing the storm rattle against the roof ahead and smite the country with its fury.

They were all gathered inside the small hut: the girls, him, Sesshoumaru and Miroku

Sesshoumaru was looking at his brother, laying awake in the monk's arms, listening to the rain outside. Something in his half brothers posture troubled the taiyoukai greatly. Sesshoumaru shifted to let his brother know he was not asleep, either.

Inuyasha, despite his lack of sight, turned towards his brother, his eyes still seeping discharge through the bandages, creating two round patches on the pale linen in a mockery of being his actual eyes.

Miroku murmured in his sleep and his hand slipped further down Inuyasha's waist, as if shying away from his growing belly.

Even after all that had happened between them, the rift between the lovers, they still sought out each other in sleep. They'd start out laying away from each other but would seek the other out when their conscious mind slept. Their hearts were too interwoven to be separated. They needed to heal and learn to trust each other again. To find their love before being alone consumed them.

In dreams they loved and trusted as always. But the rift was there by day. It had been days, and none of them knew how to fix things.

Sesshoumaru looked at his brother, who now when he was awake shied and seemed to seek out Miroku's touch at the same time. He felt sorry for his brother. His scent was a mix. Fear and pain. Self-loathing. Love and hate. And a terrible sadness enveloping his whole being. The taiyoukai sighed deeply.

"He does not love your baby, otoutou..." Sesshoumaru finally voiced out in a low whisper.

Inuyasha shifted uncomfortably, his hand curling protectively around his swollen midsection. He was still weak and emaciated after his long illness so his belly was even more pronounced that it would have been at this point of his pregnancy. Within, he carried the child he had gone through so much pain to keep.

Naraku's child.

A child Inuyasha too, like his brother, knew Miroku did really wish him to have. Not even while the hanyou desired the child, the proof of his rape. Not even then.

"He doesn't understand..." Inuyasha said in a hushed, broken voice. He was hugging his pregnant belly with two hands now, tears streaming down his cheeks. "He doesn't understand..."

Inuyasha shifted so that Miroku's hand fell away from around him, the monk rolled over on his back.

Inuyasha rocked himself, wincing as an old twinge of pain, not forgotten, turned the small smile for his child into a grimace.

Sesshoumaru crossed the room and knelt by him within an instant. "Where does it hurt, the child?" he asked, laying a hand to Inuyasha's shoulder.

Inuyasha shook his head, breathing out in short gasps to let the pain subside. "It's just the scar in my gut..." he breathed out shallowly. He listened to Miroku's steady breathing for a while, making sure the monk was still asleep. "he..."

Sesshoumaru had rarely heard his brother sound so much in pain before.

"I need to leave him..." inuyasha said with a distinct tremor to his voice. "He'll never understand... I need... I can't be with him now..."

"I know otoutou, I know" Sesshoumaru embraced his brother and let him cry against his chest, sobbing out his anguish and staining his brothers pristine silk kimono. As he did, Sesshoumaru felt a strong, healthy kick against his ribs.

The brothers drew apart, Inuyasha still crying but with a small awed smile gracing his features.

"Did you feel it too?" he asked his brother with a surprised whisper.

"I did..." Sesshoumaru smiled, warmth in his voice. He stretched a hand to touch his brothers belly, splaying his claws carefully over the cloth covered bump. His brother was dressed in a somewhat silly cherry print dress the miko had brought with her a week ago when she had gone to visit her family. Sesshoumaru had wondered about it, but looking at the girls own clothes his brothers current garb was acceptable.

The brothers waited in the sudden stillness of the night, nature itself seemed to have calmed for the occasion, only the small patter of raindrops on the roof could be heard. Finally Sesshoumaru felt another kick against his palm. A rare, barely there smile flitted briefly over his features.

"The little one is strong..." he murmured.

"The storm has passed" Inuaysha merely answered. But Sesshoumaru could clearly hear the love he had for his child in his voice. And his words had a deeper meaning. The hanyou would not let the dark consume him any more, giving light and new life a chance even after all he'd gone through.

"So it has" his brother replied, feeling sorry for his brother for the decision he'd had to make. He knew it must hurt his brother terribly, even more than his suffering in Naraku's hands had torn his mind apart.

Family came first, love second. And love, for them, their family seemed to always be doomed one way or other.


	14. Chapter 14

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : NC-17 (for subject matter and dark!)

Word Count: 5491

Warnings : disfiguration, mpreg, angst, dark (memories of rape), slight Sesshy ooc

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters depicted herein who belong to Rumiko Takahashi and the publishers of the series and the company who made the anime, I only borrow them in this work of fiction which I do for no monetary profit.

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? And once the unecpected consequences of Inuyasha's rape come to light, will his and Miroku's love be able to bring them together again and pull Inuyasha away from a sinister fate?

A/N: I think chapter 13 came out in 2008... This is becoming so so dark. I have begun the following chapter, just need to adjust a few things now as this one turned out not how I'd planned initially at all. I'm also hoping it won't take such a long while to write as this one did. My health has just been so unpredictable these past few years and with other RL issues like studying and becoming an aunt in 2009 to the most previous niece ever have taken time from fanfic. I've also been somewhat discouraged in the fandom as the interest in this pair seems to be fading and being among a select few authors who even do inumir mpreg (even when this isn't a pure example of that as it isn't Miroku's baby Inuyasha is pregnant with) and cos of that all my chapter fics have somehow ended up not getting written. That and I've been doing original stuff and lots of one shots. And I also don't know when the next chapter will come out since I'm taking a break from writing for RL reasons (health and studying).

* * *

"Niisan... I miss Miroku," Inuyasha said, sighing desolately.

He leaned on one of the wooden beams which held the roof up over the porch, his legs quietly swinging over the edge. His rooms gave into a lovely part of the garden, pruned to perfection by Sesshoumaru's gardeners, being blind, it was all lost to him now. All the beauty before him might as well have been barren land, dotted with burnt tree-stumps, devoid of vegetation. The beauty of the warm summer giving away to fall was quite lost to him. His bandaged eyes, damaged beyond healing by Naraku's shoki, which continued to linger in the still healing wounds, did not see the beauty before him. Inuyasha was only able to hear the wind rustling among the leaves, the flowing of the water in the small stream, the singing of birds on the branches, but did not see. Inuyasha sighed again. "I miss him so much...," he sighed again, his head leaning on the wooden beam, his heart heavy and mind troubled beyond belief.

Now that Inuyasha had had time to think about what his decision over the life growing inside of him entailed, he was confused and indecisive. And he missed Miroku terribly. The monk had been his friend for such a long time, someone he had always been able to trust. And after they had returned their mutual attraction after his attack, Miroku had helped him to heal, in both body and mind. Inuyasha had gained what he'd thought had been lost to him, the man he loved had dragged him up from his misery, had brought him comfort and acceptance, had made him feel worthy again. Not worthless, violated beyond repair and so dirty that he thought he'd never wash the feeling off. Miroku had made him feel loved. And he had recoiled. Recoiled from him, from his child. And a part of Inuyasha had begun to see his reasoning, believe it himself.

Believe that he would´be better off without the tangible sign of his shame, his degradation. Better off if he did not carry Naraku's off-spring. A child of the dark hanyou's hatred and malice. A part of him wanted even now to dig his claws into his belly and rip it open, hurt the innocence which lay inside and snuff out the fragile flame. It ignored the fact that such a thing would surely kill him. He was far too weak still to withstand such bloodloss. He could almost hear the dark hanyou's laughter surging through his veins as the poison his body still held coursed through him, never completely diluted. It waited for the opportune moment.

He missed Miroku. He missed him so much it made his insides churn. Miroku had accepted him, despite everything, despite his shame. Even when the man's words over the child within him had hurt him it hadn't shattered all the trust between them. After all they had stood side by side in battle and had saved each others life more than once. That kind of trust wasn't easily swept away, not by a terrible choice of words, even if they were true. Not by an action that had shattered something deep inside Inuyasha's heart.

Inuyasha sighed, battling with his thoughts.

The Lord of the West sighed too, this had become a familiar mantra repeated daily by his younger brother. His wayward younger sibling, with whom he'd so long been at odds and whom he'd now found a new connection with. A connection they never should have lost in the first place but which they had, mostly due to his own selfish arrogance. Inuyasha was family and both had finally accepted it, after all the years of squabbling and denial. And Sesshoumaru had now given Inuyasha the home he so sorely needed, still recuperating from his assault, pregnant with his first-born and at odds with the man who claimed to love him.

Blood took care of blood.

"He does not deserve you, otoutou, not with the way he thinks of you." Sesshoumaru replied, as he always did, now. The answer felt so familiar, but only because he had been repeating it daily, dozens of times, for the past month. His tone was kind for his brothers sake but it was still hard, hard for his dislike of the man who had treated his family so. The man did love Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru had sensed it and it had been obvious from looks and words, the monk's body language, but his behaviour in regards to the child was not acceptable. He should have taken Inuyasha's feelings into consideration, seen that the child was his younger brothers flesh and blood as it was their enemy's. Seen how much Inuyasha had sacrificed already. Realize that no matter how the child had been conceived, it was innocent. It did not deserve to be hated just because it had been conceived amidst hate and pain, humiliation, the utter degradation of Inuyasha's body and self. Wrongly begun it might be, but it was a spark amidst the darkness his brother's soul would eagerly succumb into. And yet even that was complicated. Things rarely seemed to go smoothly in either of their lives.

"You should not forgive him so easily and wish him back after the way in which he treated you," Sesshoumaru chided his ailing brother, knowing it was futile.

Inuyasha simply sat there, listless, fighting back tears again as he so often was. Even the unconscious swing of his legs stopping as he fought to stop the tears he knew would soon stain his already soiled bandages. He wanted Sesshoumaru to lie. To tell him that it would all be okay. Not voice the all too aching truth that he always said, now. Inuyasha needed him to lie, spew false words which would make the pain go away. Even for a moment. Tell him that Miroku loved him and would come for him. Would love the frail life within him, the heartbeat which he even now felt flutter under his own. To disperse the doubts he felt, quiet the part of him which would rather see that small flame... Inuyasha shook his head.

How could Miroku ever love his child and look past it's conception when even he himself had doubts which resurfaced more and more the longer he and the man he loved and trusted were apart?

But how could he? The monk would never love the child. His child, not... Not as long as he still had his kazaana. Miroku utterly failed to see the child's other parent, the man he loved, him, Inuaysha. Until he did, they couldn't be together. No matter how much they loved each other still, no matter how much this separation hurt them both. Inuyasha was aching to be apart from Miroku, he had to believe that the monk felt the same, otherwise he didn't know what to believe any more. And he, he had left in the dark of night with no farewell to his beloved. Inuaysha hated himself for that. He was as much of a coward as Miroku in that respect. But he had had to leave when he had. Couldn't stay. Stay another day longer. He hadn't seen the way the monk looked at him but could sense his unease, had heard his careless words at him. Inuyasha had felt Miroku flinch.

Just a single flinch. A flinch which had shattered almost all that they'd built, the trust. Had fractured his shaky sense of self, his mind again a shadowy place where nightmares dwelt and past horrors roamed free. A flinch had undone what the monk had begun, had made a crack into their love. And whether it could be mended once again, neither knew. Inuyasha dare not even think that it couldn't be mended. For if he did, it would be his end. The living nightmare of his rape would consume him whole and he'd let it. He'd forget his child and let his mind fall on itself. And even his brother would more than likely not be able to pull him out of it.

And what was most frightening of all: he didn't think that he'd want to be pulled out, once he was too far gone. It was a dark thought, flitting through his mind quickly, being gone almost as soon as it had surfaced. A momentary panic to confuse his thoughts.

Inuyasha leaned on the supporting beam, his body ailing and mind buried in dark thoughts. Darkness flowed in his veins once again, his heart poisoned by doubt, the bitter sting of quilt-riddled agony, self-loathing. His thoughts too sinister to say aloud, his desire for Miroku the only thing among them which made any sense at all. He needed his lover, he needed for the monk to realize that he'd been hurt. He needed to forgive Miroku so the man could help him through this. Inuaysha was scared and lost and didn't know how long he'd stand it. His mind whispered such things when he slept...

Sesshoumaru looked his brother with pity in his eyes, a glance that went unnoticed due to his brothers blindness. He was truly sorry for him. Inuyasha was a shadow of his former self. Shaky and moody, dejected. His bony frailty only enhanced by his growing belly, heavy with child. A child Sesshoumaru was unsure if his brother thought about all the time. He had become more morose by the day, ever since he'd come. He may not speak of the child, however, but Sesshoumaru still saw. Saw a bony hand caress over swollen flesh and run soothing circles over it. Lips whisper meaningless words as his brother lay wrapped inside his own thoughts, still unconsciously boding with his unborn child.

He knew nothing of the dark thoughts swirling inside his brothers head but he still felt as if there was something... A sense of foreboding seemed to be enveloping his brother, it worried Sesshoumaru. Inuaysha was too... something. Most of the time the lord of the West felt like his brother was mending slowly, although his health was still in tatters despite the best efforts of his healers, but then there were moments when he thought he sensed it. And it frustrated him that he couldn't say what 'it' was. Darkness, inconsolable darkness, whispering to his brother. He might end up having to protect Inuyasha from himself.

"I could always know, sense him there even if I couldn't see him," Inuyasha said, his voice a bit hoarse, shaking. "Have him there, feel his cool hand on my forehead when the fever burned." His fingers went over and over in a circle, sliding over the smooth silk over his belly.

Sesshoumaru was unsure whether his hanyou brother even knew what his hands were doing. He sat beside his brother on the porch a few feet away, unsure if he should do more than sit there. Inuyasha usually didn't require much. He wanted someone to just listen. But only when he talked.

"I was so out of it but knowing he was there, knowing he didn't care about..." Inuyasha raised a scarred hand to touch his bandaged eyes, dirty tears streaking from beneath. "Didn't care about this... That he loved me even after I'd been ... forced..." his voice drowned in sobs. His body shook as he sat there beside his brother, facing the gardens which opened before them, the beauty of which was lost to him. He couldn't utter the words to voice his experience, months after the violence he'd endured was still too fresh on his mind.

"I know..." Sesshoumaru murmured. He reached out with his hand, laying it on his brothers arm and expecting Inuyasha to flinch, as he had begun to do the longer he'd been at the castle. When Inuyasha didn't, Sesshoumaru embraced his brother tightly, letting Inuyasha cry against his shoulder. "But you know he doesn't..." Always the voice of reason, almost to the point of being cruel, he was. Even now, with their connection as brothers still questionable, tentative and fragile in regards to certain things.

And yet, his brother did not flinch away even when embraced by the brother he'd so long been at odds with.

"I know," Inuyasha sniffed, a hand curled protectively over his stomach. He could feel the fluttering movements of his baby against his palm, calming him. Reminding him of his decision and its reasons. Knowing of it all so late, he was a bit apprehensive but fiercely protective of his child when he was pulled up from his moods. He loved the small life budding inside of him, the steadily fluttering heartbeat a comfort as it beat in time of his own broken heart.

Sesshoumaru stroked his back. "The child is family," he stated. "As much as you may love him, the monk isn't." Even if he might defend the monk in regards to some things he would not lie. He would state things to his brother the way they were, not gloss over them, make them seem other than what they were.

Inuyasha twitched. "But why can't I have both?" he asked sadly. He didn't want to think that Miroku wouldn't be a part of his life, he couldn't go back to being merely a friend. Even when their relationship hadn't gotten too physical yet, such things still shadowed by Inuyasha's assault, prevented by his ill health, the hanyou still missed being in Miroku's warm embrace, the warmth and love of his kisses making him overjoyed every time. Inuyasha's hand lay over the swell of his abdomen, stroking it gently."He could be my mate!" His head whipped around to face Sesshoumaru, even when he couldn't see the expression his brother wore. His body still clung to habitual movements like that even when blind. Tears stained his cheeks and his stomach churned as his nose was assaulted by the tell tale smell of the poison. He'd tried deny it was still there but it seemed his nightmare would never end.

Inuyasha cried as his brother merely sat by him, unable to offer his brother the kind of comfort he sorely needed. His hand soothing as it lay over his brother's back but inadequate still. Yet it was all the comfort Inuyasha had to cling to.

The hanyou loved both so much. Miroku had helped him escape the nightmares of his torture in Naraku's hands. But there was a bleeding wound in Inuyasha's heart. The knowledge that Miroku didn't understand why he had wanted to keep this child. His child. That the man who loved him couldn't love his child too. Or realize that Inuyasha, too sometimes doubted the sagacity of his decision and desperately needed Miroku's support to be able to live with it, get over the horror of his assault and try and piece back together the shards of his shattered life.

They sat there on the outside of Inuyasha's rooms for a long time, the older brother gently stroking his hanyou brother's long silvery hair. Giving him the comfort in the embrace he could not give in words, unaccustomed to such things where his brother was concerned. Listening for the nature twittering and buzzing among the flowers and bushes and trees. Staying for as long as it took for Inuyasha's tears to subside and for the hanyou to start fretting and shuffling again. There had been a knock on his door which echoed through the rooms out into the garden. Both knew who it was.

"Please, niisan..." The hanyou's hand fisted in the back of Sesshoumaru's kimono. "Can't..."

The elder brother patted his back.

"Hai, otoutou, I will try and keep the miko away," he promised, leaving his brother to his dark thoughts, thinking he'd helped him disperse them at least a little. "Get some rest."

* * * *

Night fell and his nightmares returned. The screen was open to let in a gentle night breeze, the soothing sound of nature outside, just as he'd grown accustomed to. But those things did not bring him peace that night. His mind falling deep, buried memories dredged up by his morose thoughts of his waking hours. His brow was sweaty as he twisted on the bed, mouth open to elicit no scream, eyes crying futile tears, a river of blood and poison. Unseeing eyes seeing, reliving, what they had last. And even when he'd given anything to see even a single glimpse of things while he was awake, Inuyasha would have given anything to be spared his vivid nightmares during the night.

"_Like it, slut? Like it deep inside?" The voice was venom in his ears, the words sliding over his skin along with the sickening feel of something... other. Cold, slimy. His body was broken in half, filled with something which made him scream. Would have, if he'd have had the will to scream any more. He didn't. It had died hours past. Yet being unable to do nothing but sob brokenly did not lessen the pain. It was excruciating. _

His claws dug into the bedding, ripping, seeking solace in the softness under him. The contrast stark in comparison to his memories of hard earth, dirt in his wounds, an unyielding weight upon him, pinning him down. Touches ghosted on his skin and he ripped at his clothes in his sleep, anxious to rid of them. Letting go of the solace of letting them sink into his bed.

_Slithering, slithering all around him... Pain, excruciating pain, debilitating, filling his mind, bending his body beyond breaking. Slimy things, bad things that should not have been there wound around him, pinning him down, touching him in ways that were so disgusting he felt sick. Threw up, felt the bile in his throat. Wanted to scream as his mouth was filled with their vileness. His body demeaned and used, his spirit broken, self crushed as his face pressed against the dirt. His sight ruined never to see anything, never to see his beloved monk again. His heart burned as he knew, realized that after this, he'd be worse than dead. Yet wishing ardently he was dead, unconscious, for the pain to just stop, for it all to end... _

He shifted with a voiceless scream, body twisting, tears spilling and the poison going it's way. His body shuddering, the whimpers escaping partially closed lips, turning into wails. Echoes of a nightmare, echoes of a memory. Shadowed reflections of things past, bleeding into the present.

_His body reeling. His lips open in a wordless scream, unheard by the violation to his body. His mind slipping into darkness, no way out. A face, violet eyes, fading and out of reach. A seed of destruction sown within. Poison. Poison so deep it never came out, no potion to relinquish it's hold on his body. _

A clawed hand was gripping over the swell of a formerly flat abdomen, the life pulsing within, innocent. Skin bare, covered in scraps of torn cloth. The sharp tips of claws barely sinking into now faintly scarred skin at first, pricking, making it bleed, small droplets of crimson. Then digging deeper, his nightmares making the edge of reality fade into darkness. The pain of his body in the waking world nothing compared to that of his nightmares.

"_Feel it now?" The voice sank deep into his head, slithering like a snake, writhing, like he was. Bleeding, raw, he was violated. His eyes fading, the image fading. His self dissipating into welcoming darkness. Sad that he could not be with the one he loved, his mind going blank as his body felt like exploding with the blinding pain. Sinking into blessed nothingness, hoping to never wake again. _

Yet he had.

He rolled over, gasping, barely half-conscious but enough to realize what he was doing. Claws still within his body, he yanked them out with a scream, a heart wrenching sob. The bandages bloomed with new blood, brimmed with green, mixing with his tears. The poison still slumbered in his blood, waiting, malicious and unpredictable. It stank, kami did it stink, even in his dreams the putrid stench assaulted his senses and he was violently ill, staining his bed, soiling his clothes. But it was more than the poison. He felt the desperate flutter inside, knew he'd nearly undone the thing which had kept him clinging to life, which had ruined it at the same time.

He screamed.

Screamed so his voice echoed in the rooms of the castle, waking the household with it's insistent terror. Gagged as he tasted the lingering taste of sick in his mouth, nothing came up any more, nothing could. His emaciated form had nothing to gag up any more. He screamed. Claws dripping blood and his body shaking, he screamed. The border of nightmare and reality tumbled down and he knew which was which any more, instinct alone keeping his claws where they were, stopping them from killing his precious child.

And he screamed.

* * *

The lord of the West woke in the dead of night. The castle should have been silent, free of the sounds of the buzz of life which filled it during the day. Yet it had not been silent for a month now. Not since Sesshoumaru had brought his estranged and ailing brother home at last, under the roof of their ancestral home. After that, the stillness of the night was a thing long past. It had started with incessant broken murmurs and barely stifled sobbing, building up into screaming and loud wails which broke all peace and quiet.

Still, Sesshoumaru had never heard his brother's crying to sound like this. So urgent, desperate, heart-wrenching. Inuyasha sounded like he was dying. And he'd never smelt blood. The way it's iron tang mixed with the now almost ever-present stench of Naraku's poison almost made him gag. Rising up in his luxurious bed, the lord noticed he had to cover his nose with a delicate yet deadly hand. Yet the scent of the blood spurred him into action. Combined with the terror he felt in his brother's cry, it made his insides churn, his body to move with unrivalled speed.

Sesshoumaru burst into his brother's room, his robes flowing around him, frowning as he saw his brother trash in his bed and screaming at the top of his lungs. The scent of flesh burned by sizzling poison filled the room's air, the irony scent of blood was fainter but it was even more ominous. His brothers night terrors, the waking nightmare of his memories haunting him as Inuyasha's heart ached for the loss of his beloveds daily company, they had never been this severe. His brother's back arched off the bed as he cried out, wailed out with the bandages on his face stained a mix of green and black. His body was barely covered with his tattered torn clothing and the skin of his abdomen was marred by deep crimson gashes.

Inuyasha was out of control, out of reach, almost out of mind.

Only when he got closer did Sesshoumaru smell the acrid stench of sick and saw it stain the bed, some on Inuyasha's face still. His brother writhed on the bed, claws sunk into the futon beneath him, keeping hold there, clinging on for dear life. Words scampered off his stained lips, ran in the air scared and confused. Utterly mortified at what he'd done. Lost. Even more confused since it wasn't clear to the youkai lord if his brother was awake or still on the verge of waking and nightmares.

As the youkai lord knelt on the bed, reaching out his hands to stop his brother from flailing he quickly thought over the situation at hand. How it was such a cruel joke that the thing which had brought upon his brothers current state and his need for the man whose absence had unleashed the nightmares, was the very reason to it at the same time. As his golden eyes looked down at Inuyasha's bloodied abdomen he could sense the life within fluttering but still alive. The child was strong and he was amazed at how much more it could take before it would either die and take it's mother with it or kill Inuyasha, weakening his ailing body too much and die along him?

"Fetch the healer, right away!" he ordered to whomever it was that he felt hovering in the doorway behind him. Judging by the terrified gasp it was the miko. The stench of Inuyasha's bed overrode her human scent so he only had to rely on hearing alone. His brother's screams had now died and given away to anguished sobbing and broken murmurs. Sesshoumaru heard her steps only moments after, running along the corridor. Sesshoumaru had to be careful of his brother's trashing form, holding him down gently but decisively. Without seeing his eyes it was difficult to tell if he was wake or not. The murmurs really told nothing.

"Inuyasha!" he raised his voice over his brother's trashing and vocal crying. No answer, no reaction but a violent trash which almost made both tumble off the bed. Sesshoumaru flinched as his robes were soiled, he really didn't want to see what with. Just the cold sensation was enough to made him shudder. "Inuyasha...," he repeated in what was his version of a soothing voice. But the shudder had ruined it all. Inuaysha was recoiling from him even more. His trashing making his situation all the worse, his body was healing so slowly, as it now did due to the poison, if Inuyasha lost more blood he'd surely miscarry. Sesshoumaru could already feel the fragile heartbeat falter.

He sighed, there was nothing he could do now to soothe his baby brother in the hopes to at least slow the bleeding, but one thing.

As the youkai lord gathered his brothers crying form in his arms, his robes torn under the assault of tightly gripping talons, unflinching of the pain as blood ran down his arms and back, he felt that it should have been his brothers intended, not him. That man who had been yet another sterling example of the weakness of the human race, letting his emotions dissuade him from what was important, his lover. Whose rejection had made the nightmares assault the broken hanyou once more. Inuyasha had admitted that they had gone away mostly after he and the monk had admitted their mutual feelings. Rejection had undone what love had begun to mend, having tasted a hopeful future, Inuyasha might even be more frail now than what he had been before. All the monk's fault.

And so it was Inuyasha's brother who was left to pick up the pieces.

As his arms held his brother close, pinned his arms down on his sides and held them there, gently removing them from his own back where they'd clawed at him, the lord of the West frowned. Poison. The scent was even more disgusting this up close. A dampness pressed to his chest, seeping through his clothes into his skin. Blood. Inuyasha had trashed so much that his wounds had indeed opened, too, and his abdomen bled from where he'd clawed at it. But he didn't cringe away, merely sighed and started to plot Naraku's slow and torturous demise.

He'd make the dark hanyou pay for what he'd done. Killing Naraku off had been in his mind for a long time now, especially because of _her_, but the bastard seemed to have vanished and could not be traced anywhere. And his absence during Inuyasha's illness made it rather clear that Naraku believed he'd killed Inuyasha. Or if not killed him at the time of his assault when Inyasha had been left for dead, bleeding from grievous injuries and violated in the worst of ways, then it was clear that the poison still lingering in Sesshoumaru's brothers veins should have finished him off already.

As his brother cried, still trashing but seeming to come to his senses slolwy, Sesshoumaru wondered why Inuyasha's affliction was so fixed into his eyes. Overall, his body had gotten better, but his eyes hadn't. And Sesshoumaru knew why all too well. He'd been present when the dressings had been changed last. His brother's face bore scars but the ones around his eyes were horrible. His eyes would never fully heal because they had been, to all intents and purposes, been gouged out. There was nothing left there anymore to heal. And now poisoned blood was seeping through his bandages onto Sesshoumaru's clothes.

And he let it.

Feeding his youki to his brother, keeping the flutter within alive, disallowing his brother to succumb to this darkness, Sesshoumaru held him. Hoping the healer would hurry.

"Do not let this be the end of you, do not let them win..." he murmured into his brothers ear as he held him, like he should have been held by him, his brother, many a time in the past. This was Sesshoumaru's repentance, he just wished deep down that he didn't have so much to repent for. That he could have, in some way, prevented his brother from becoming such a wretched, broken thing.

"Miroku..."

That Inuyasha would still say that name, sob it out brokenly, it made Sesshoumaru growl low in his throat. It was the only sensible thing passing his brothers lips and it grated at his nerves. The reason for all of this, the reason of his brother's broken heart, that his brother would still sob out his name. He shouldn't have had to. If the human man hadn't been such a coward Inuyasha wouldn't have to be here now, sobbing and bleeding all over his robes.

The name mocked him.

Sesshoumaru wasn't so full of himself that he'd think that Inuyasha would ever say his name in such a manner, seek solace in it like he did in the monk's name. And neither did the lord of the West wish to be anything other to his brother than just that. A brother. Even when such things as siblings in a relationship, far beyond just being family, wasn't so uncommon among youkai. No, Sesshoumaru did not seek that with his brother. He already had his sights set on a particular woman. Yet even that was complicated. He felt her touch on the night wind which slithered in from the open windows. He took comfort from it, holding his brother closer. The years he'd spent belittling and emotionally shunning his brother to the point of violence were not easy to erase. He let the love he felt for her give his brother the comfort he did not yet fully feel. This was as much about him becoming who he should have been all these years as it was about comforting his brother and trying to help him find some semblance of normalcy. Stability in the chaos which was his life. And at that given moment, keep him clinging to reality and stave off lingering death.

"Otoutou..."

That was all he could say as Inuyasha clung to him in panic, anguished sobs still shaking his all too emaciated frame against Sesshoumaru. The lord of the West could feel blood seeping into his robes still from his brothers horrid wounds, he could feel the blood touch his skin, cling into his very pores. And the stench. His nose was too sensitive to ignore the disgusting smell of the poison which dribbled from Inuyasha's worst wounds. It was horrid. It was pushing him past his endurance, the vicinity of such an odour was almost too much for him. He cursed his weakness as he sank a fang into his bottom lip. He had to be there for Inuyasha now, to not let him sink into his nightmares. Into nothingness. To die as he held him. And it chilled him to hear what passed his brothers lips in a mantra, a broken litany of a mind crumbling, trying in vain to hold onto sanity.

"Miroku... Miroku... Miroku..."

If his brother would hold onto life with thoughts of the man who'd abandoned him, who was he, Sesshoumaru, to stand in his way? If it made the lingering clouds of nightmares easier to bear then so be it. He stroked his brothers hair, held him tight as he waited for the healer, feeling his brothers life fluctuating, mind reeling on the precipice of madness. Body shaking with sobs which were now more automation than anything. Heart beating like it would burst and the little life within fluttering in such a panic. There was something sinister afoot. Something... Sesshoumaru could feel the change in the air, his brothers sobbing becoming less frantic, his hands gripping him tighter and head burrowing against the soiled front of his silky yukata. His brother was calming. Yet it felt wrong. And as his brother next spoke, Sesshoumaru knew exactly why.

"Miroku... I knew you'd come back for me..."


	15. Chapter 15

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13 (albeit this chapter deals with heavy issues morally)

Word Count: 6030

Warnings : disfiguration, mpreg, angst, dark

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha depicted herein who belong to Rumiko Takahashi and the publishers of the series and the company who made the anime, I only borrow them in this work of fiction which I do for no monetary profit.

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? And once the unecpected consequences of Inuyasha's rape come to light, will his and Miroku's love be able to bring them together again and pull Inuyasha away from a sinister fate?

A/N: Yes, I'm ithis/ievil. Look, there's PLOT!

"You are a damned fool, houshi-sama".

The words had been uttered with a low voice but were esily heard in the quiet of the field. He had been rather difficult to find, again, but she'd persevered. It was easier today as she had help, the man walked a few steps behind her. They found the monk attempting to meditate, or trying to look like he was, in the middle of a field some ways out of Kaede's village.

Miroku looked up at Sango, only noticing she'd come to stand by him when she'd spoken, her tone harsh and judgemental. Like always now.

It had been a month since Inuyasha had left, left in the dead of night without nothing but a note written by Kagome to say that she and Shippou had gone with Inuyasha and his brother. It felt like an eternity had passed since that morning.

They would have followed them, save for the last words... i_don't come/i. _They'd made the monk rage, drop to his knees and beat the ground, screaming and weeping.

Miroku had been beating himself up for his idiotic behaviour towards Inuyasha every day since then. If he truly loved the hanyou all he should want would be to see him smile and be happy.

And he hadn't been able to give Inuyasha that. He'd been selfish. Succumbing to his inner struggles he had all but driven the hanyou away, pregnant and scared and sick as he was. His love hadn't been enough to make him see sense. To realize that all Inuyasha needed was his love and acceptance. Whatever befell them. And he'd failed. Because he was a fool, a coward, a man worthy of his bad reputation.

"The slayer's right... You love that idiot so why not just go after him anyhow?"

Miroku glared at the ookami sourly. Why did he have to be there? And why did he care?

"Why won't _you_ go after Kagome, yourself?" he retorted coldly, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He did not like the ookami being there at all. Vitnessing first hand the way Inuyasha's absence hurt him. Seeing someone who could love without restraint gnawed at Miroku's heart, there was no complications as far as he could discern, in the relations between the wolf and the absent miko.

Kouga had come into the village that afternoon in search of Kagome. He'd been sorely disappointed to not find her there. And then he'd refused to leave before he was filled in on what she had been doing and where she now was. He was being a royal pain in the ass. Poking and prodding at things that should have been left undisturbed.

But there was another reason Miroku disliked him. He'd been the first to burst out the news that Inuaysha was impregnated by Naraku's seed. Driving his lover to run as fast as he could, spending strength and health he could ill afford to part with. Collapsing in the forest and nigh bleeding to death, his body giving out.

And while it was quite unfair and unreasonable, the monk hated Kouga a bit for it. If he'd just kept his mouth shut or been a bit more eloquent on the subject...

But reason it as much as he did, Miroku knew that as soon as Inuyasha had gotten better, or had not been so ill with the poison to begin with, he would have realized the truth on his own. When he'd seemed so shocked at the news, it had been clear that Inuyasha hadn't known that he could conceive. And Miroku had spent many a long night thinking how differently it would have all turned out had he been unable to. Or how sweet and utterly wonderful it would all have been if the child had been his...

So in the end Inuaysha would have known, even when he'd probably have denied it at first. But what really rattled Miroku was the fact that Naraku had _seen_ Inuyasha. Open and vulnerable in ways the monk himself never had. He'd perverted an act of intimacy, something Miroku had thought he would have shared with Inuaysha by now had the attack not happened, perverted it into something cruel and painful. Taking away Inuyasha's choice and violating his body and mind. Leaving him on the brink of death. Leaving behind a bitter-sweet gift. A child. Begun in violence and saved by it's 'mothers' kind and forgiving heart. For it was as innocent as Inuaysha had been, not to be blamed for it's origins. Of it's conception through hate and terror, pain and humiliation.

What had made Miroku reel was that the child could have been his. Should have been his. Theirs. A child born out of love, mutual sharing of their passion, an embrace of pleasure, not pain. A child of love.

The child Inuyasha carried had been an accident. An unexpected result of the hanyou's humiliation. Innocent. Because it really hadn't been able to choose it's parents, the way it had been conceived.

And as long as Miroku could not accept it, accept the child's innocence, he and Inuyasha could never be. No matter the love they shared between them. Naraku's evil reach was long. His corruption still at work even now in the separation of the lovers.

Inuaysha had not even left him with a proper farewell.

"Don't want to rattle the old dog."

Kouga's voice pierced into Miroku's inner thoughts and shook him out of them again. Out into the world where everything seemed to remind him of Inuyasha's absence, a world where he didn't really see the world around him, the beauty of a summer's day because he was so preoccupied with beating himself up. Miroku knew that he needed to focus on something else, for a while at least. Be it even the annoying youkai. Yet he'd lost the end of the conversation, immersed in his thoughts.

"What?" Miroku retorted, the tail of their conversation eluding him as his mind was still buzzing with his dark and dreary thoughts.

"Well it would be a bit awkward of me showing up there, I don't exactly get along with 'im."

"Sesshoumaru?" Miroku asked wearily, folding his hands on his lap. He sighed. They would not let him think in peace and now he couldn't even try and meditate. He sighed again.

"Yeah, we're not enemies or anything but we don't get along..."

"That sounds like you and..." Miroku stopped mid-sentence, unable to utter his absent lover's name. It pained him too much.

Thankfully the conversation seemed to be at an end. With Kouga at least. But Sango, she wouldn't let the issue go.

"You're a damned fool, Miroku. I know Inuyasha hasn't always been easy to deal with but this, how you treat him now, it's unacceptable."

Her tone was harsh. Harsher than it usually was when she was displeased with him, which had been often in the past. Before. When his hands had wandered. Before he had noticed Inuyasha's beauty, _seen him_, she had been an attraction to him. Something he wanted to touch, someone he'd have maybe wanted to kiss, love and bed. For a time. But then, by chance, Inuyasha had really crashed into his consciousness as someone who wasn't a mere friend. Beautiful and fierce and utterly desirable. And he'd been lost ever since.

"Don't you think I don't know that!?"

The monk sprang to his feet, deciding it was time to go. They could follow him around. Hopefully they'd leave him in peace for at least a brief time.

Miroku turned his back and strode away from the two, one who he called friend, a sister he never had and the one who was, what, on his way to becoming a friend. Maybe. But he needed to be away. Away and alone with his dark thoughts, his self loathing. It ate away at him, gnawing and twisting in his gut. And he deserved every single moment of misery.

Because he'd hurt Inuyasha so. He'd made him cry. He'd broken his heat.

* * * *

"You're an idiot!"

Miroku stiffened and his hands gripped his staff tightly. He should have known, it was the wolf. Again. Ever and always haunting his steps and berating him for allowing Inuyasha to leave. As if he would have stopped his lover had he been able to. He would have wanted to be able to, of course.

"What do you care, you always hated Inuyasha, remember?" the monk said without even turning to look at the youkai. Instead, he let his eyes linger on the play of the light on the gently swaying water. He'd once again wandered off to where Inuyasha had loved to sit. The place where his presence seemed to still linger. A place where he could say his name.

He thought that visibly ignoring the wolf would prompt him to leave. No such luck, however. Kouga walked to him and sat down next to him on the grass. They both looked at the river but not at each other, at least Miroku did not look, he couldn't tell whether the wolf was looking at him, like he thought he was. Must be. The wolf always had to push, he had no sense of decency.

"Maybe I don't," the wolf finally said, and now Miroku did know that he was in fact surveying the stream, he chanced a look. "Don't seem fair now, when he's lost it all, to hate his guts. And after..."

Kouga let the words linger in the air between them, unsaid. He couldn't put the assault on his long time rival to words and the monk was glad for it. Glad and surprised, he'd have thought that the wolf prince would rub it in, say that Inuyasha had got what he deserved. But even he, it seemed, wasn't that cruel.

"And besides, Kagome said that she likes me..." Kouga sounded wistful, his mind clearly slipping into reverie over his last meeting with Kagome.

Something had passed between the two, Miroku was sure of it. The wolf's coming here into Kaede's village and i_staying/i_ there, it was too out of the norm to be regular. And it was suspicious enough to even jar him out of his stupor, the state of moroseness which Inuyasha's leaving had prompted. His life was so empty without his lover.

But now, all Miroku could do was look at Kouga in amazement. This was something he'd not expected ever to hear from him. The wolf grinned at him, baring his canines. Then his pale blue eyes became serious and bored into his. The monk sighed. What now?

"You really i_are/i _an idiot, you know that, monk?" the wolf repeated solemnly, his tone more grave than Miroku would ever thought it could be when they were talking about the person they were.

"Did Sango put you up to this?" Miroku countered, lazily flicking a small pebble into the stream, making the surface of the water scatter, the reflection of the skies above, so peaceful and serene, exploded into a burst of colours.

Miroku was peeved.

What right did the wolf have to come and berate him, flaunt his own success in amorous relations to his face. To him who'd lost all but his own life. A life now hollow by what it lacked. Who was Kouga to judge him? They weren't even friends, only chance-comrades in arms. Not even his heart, which had begun to see Kagome as a very dear friend and should have been happy for her sake, not even that penetrated through his gloom. Meddling women! That's all they were. Meddlers, never could leave well enough alone. And Sango of all people, the one he thought he was closest with after Inuyasha. "If she did, tell her to mind her own damn business..."

"The taijiya?" Kouga glanced at Miroku, "nahh, she don't talk to me about you, much. Threatens to kill me if I hurt Kagome, though. In much detail. Repeatedly."

The monk heard the wolf shudder, shake off the memory of Sango at her scariest. He chuckled briefly, unable to help himself. "Sango is a fierce friend. I'd try and keep her happy if I were you."

"Point taken, thanks, monk," Kouga sounded genuinely thankful.

"Miroku, just call me Miroku." What point was there of him hating the wolf, really? And maybe a little politeness would make him leave. "Kouga."

"Whatever you like," the wolf drawled.

"Don't make an enemy out of her," he reminded him. "She will kill you. Make good her threat. All of them."

Miroku let his staff drop over his knees again with a soft jingle and concealed his hands in the dark folds of his robes. Looking at the water streaming undisturbed again, mirroring the softly gliding white clouds and the vivid blue of the sky, he breathed in a deep heartfelt sigh.

"I know," Kouga said. He had seen her looks and Sango had talked to him at length about what would happen if Kafome became unhappy on account of him. Really using quite graphic descriptions. The ookami shuddered anew at the memory.

The wolf said no more, nor did the monk and they sat in shared silence. The other's morose, the other's pensive. Evening fell upon them, the water gently streaming by, the light fading as the rays of the dying sun kissed the treetops in farewell for the night. Both were without the company of the one they loved, sharing a mutual camaraderie of loneliness. Two men united through their longing.

He was as much of an idiot as Kouga had said to him.

And yet, for days on he did nothing. He stayed at the village while Sango stared at him all day long with a frown, her gaze yelling 'coward' to her every time their eyes met. The weather was sunny but did nothing to lighten his mood, shake away the clouds of doom which clouded his mind. There was no easy way to chase away the storm raging inside him. He only spoke when spoken to, did what tasks Kaede set out for him to do, wondered in passing if he should be looking at the shards. He should, shouldn't he?

They had been putting it off far too long. But there had been no clues, no word of Naraku's whereabouts. It seemed he had vanished to thin air. And, in the moments when thoughts of Inuyasha weren't the main focus of his thoughts, Miroku knew that Naraku had to be up to something. Some new kind of evil designed to kill them all.

One night he sat by the fire and stared at his hand. The curse was there, nigh staring at him. What if he never did go back into searching the Shikon no Tama? And one day, his doom would come and take away all the pain he had, wiped out all he had, was, could have been. Would he become a fading memory to Inuaysha then? Or would the hanyou remember? Kisses and warm loving words, the future that had been theirs but which had been undone by one man's foolish actions... Would he remember and suffer in silence?

Or was he already dead by Naraku's poison?

And that thought made him flinch anew. For surely he'd know. There would have been word sent to them had Inuaysha met his death while battling the poison still in his system. Naraku's assault was long and unexpected, his evil lingering in the very blood running through his lovers veins. And at that moment, Miroku physically ached to be by Inuyasha's side. His arm throbbed briefly and he gasped.

And he knew.

There wouldn't be much time for him to fret. Not much time at all. The rip in his hand was starting to keep him on his toes, throwing him reminders of it's existence. If Naraku lived much longer, the curse would claim him. Rip him open and consume him into nothingness. It made him feel ill.

"Will you rather die having done nothing, and never see him again?"

Sango's words cut into him. Miroku turned his head and looked at her. She had her back to the wall behind and was studying him. He looked the other way. He sighed deep. Why did she have to be so perceptive? He was glad Kaede was momentarily away and Kouga was somewhere in the woods, running, or whatever it was he did in the night. The monk was glad this discussion was private.

"Honestly, no. But I...," he paused. He didn't know what he could say. Wasn't sure what he thought. And yet he knew. Knew it deep down. It was etched into his heart, that if he never saw Inuyasha again, he might as well be dead already. "No. I'd have nothing better than see him again. To say I'm sorry."

"To say you love him," she interjected. Kirara cuddled to her side and she pet her idly.

"That too." Miroku sighed.

He looked at his hand again. Against the fire it was a mere outline, details omitted by it's remaining in shade, and he couldn't really tell his flesh apart from the cloth and beads. It felt normal again now. Had it really pulsed? Maybe. Or he was imagining things. Yet he knew it had been acting up more and more for months, while he'd been ignoring it for Inuyasha's benefit. His focus all on him. He sighed and looked at her, knowing she observed him with a keen eye.

"We should be getting back to looking at the Shards, even without Kagome," Sango looked at him, winding her arms tightly around her knees. Her eyes bore into him.

He knew she was getting restless. Ever since they had met her she'd been driven by the sole objective of collecting the Shards and defeating Naraku. Getting her brother back, even when he might remember the horror's he'd taken a part in. Because he was all she had left.

"Naraku needs to be killed, if a way can be found with which to kill him, we must find it." She sounded so eager, eager for battle, the blood bounding in her ears. Anything but this sitting around and doing nothing even when they knew not where their objective lay. Always the warrior.

"Yes," he replied. He closed his hand to a fist and lowered it, meeting her brown eyes which stared at him over the fire pit between them.

"You don't have that much time left, do you?" she asked softly. She was compassionate, anxious and a bit afraid. It was hidden beneath the eager note of her voice but still there. Fear. To face the battle alone now that their troupe was so diminished. Scattered. Dispirited. And she was right to be so. Naraku's long absence was alarming. There was no knowing which devilry he was up to. They had no idea what plan he had to get rid of them and possess all the Shards their side had.

And he could not lie to her. Wouldn't. Not about this. She needed to know. And he needed to hear himself say it aloud. Maybe then he'd kick himself into action.

"No," he replied curtly. And he felt a pain in his heart. "I wish I hadn't hurt Inuyasha so. I _need _all the time I can have with him. Because..." he stopped short, looked at Sango.

She smiled wryly at him.

"Because you don't think that we can beat Naraku?" she filled out his words. His worst fears.

"Yes."

And they looked at each other, comrades in arms, siblings via shared tragedy. And she sighed, and he looked away. The hut was dark around them, illuminated only by the fire burning slowly. The wood crackled and the wind rattled the roof outside.

"Neither do I."

And they fell to silence. Nothing more needed to be said. Both felt the weight of their words on their shoulders, their hearts cold because they were sure to face an enemy they mightn't be able to beat. It horrified them. The helplessness of admitting there was nothing to be done but to persevere and try their hardest. They might kill Naraku, die trying. Or kill him and die then, wearied out by the battle. But to win and live? Not the slayer nor the monk saw fit to entertain such a flight of fancy.

They were doomed.

* * *

He was so distracted that he couldn't even meditate.

It had been his morning ritual for as long as he could remember, his earliest memories, the few happy one's he had of his father before his kazaana had consumed him, were of them meditating together when he was a small child. His father would wake him up and take him by the hand, they would go outside to greet the newborn day and meditate. His father's presence near him, it was easy to fall into the mindset of meditation. After his father's untimely, yet all too sudden, death, meditation hadn't come easy for young Miroku. Something in him had broken, he had lost his family and become the bearer of the curse in one single soul crushing moment. Right after he'd seen his father consumed, he'd crouched down with pain lacing through his right hand, his days numbered from thereon. The bane to demons a death sentence to him. Wild and unpredictable.

And then when he had needed the connection, needed to calm his mind and reach some semblance of equilibrium, then it had felt impossible and hard to come by. But he'd persevered and found his calm again, and become the young man whose holy powers were formidable enough for Naraku to device a ploy against him lest he become consumed by the kazaana. He was in control of his curse, his meditation keeping it in check and himself sane, sane with the daily knowing that he was a marked man. His days would be numbered before he lived to be much older than what he was now. A few years was what he'd thought he still had but now, in the past months, he knew he didn't even have that. And it had been scattering his thoughts, reminding him of the days after his fathers death.

This was worse.

Every time he sat down, breathed in deep and tried to gain that elusive state of meditation, Inuyasha popped into his head. His face, bandaged or bleeding and horribly disfigured, never the face of happier days, with golden eyes shining with rare mirth, lips in a smile. Or the hanyou's voice ringing in his ears, sobbing at nightmares or bellowing with his usual defiance against a stronger foe which had been his doom. Inuyasha was in his head, in his thoughts, deep and ingrained. The memory of brief sweet kisses just out of his reach, the flesh memory of holding his lover as he shook in the wake of his horrors eluding him.

And the guilt.

The guilt thumped inside his head, it beat a rhythm of accusation. He should have known better than to ever hurt Inuaysha. He hadn't had a happy life before they all had met, only after Inuyasha's release from the Goshinboku had the hanyou really known friendship in full. And in the end, love. It gnawed at Miroku that he had been such a coward, that he hadn't been able to tell Inuaysha he loved him before he had been damaged and tampered with. He had, he had told him he loved him, sealed their affection with kisses, held his broken lover during endless nights when he'd wept, gasped in pain, held his hand. And then taken his heart and smashed it into pieces the moment the hanyou needed him the most.

One wrong move, and just because he'd not been able to contain himself. Because he'd been a coward.

And an idiot.

A damned fool.

Miroku shook his head, he felt the weight of his actions heavily, his body feeling too much, perceiving the world in a way which was not conductive to regaining his equilibrium, his focus. And yet he needed his focus. To beat Naraku, maybe then his traitorous morality, the thing which had deceived him, would accept Inuyasha's child as innocent to the act of it's conception. With Naraku dead, there'd be a chance that Miroku could see his lover's child as Inuyasha's only. Even when the child would never be that. The monk wondered if he'd ever be able to look at the child and not remember who had been it's other parent. To not flinch, contain the look of dislike in his eyes.

If the child lived. If Inuaysha lived through the birth.

And that scared Miroku the most now. It was a thought he tried to keep at bay because it terrified him, making his blood run cold. Inuaysha had seemed better before he'd left but the months of illness had wrecked his health. The poison which ran through the hanyou's veins had damaged his usual regenerative abilities. It had been evident with how slowly he had healed from the initial attack. It had taken months for scars to form on the deep gashes on his body which Naraku had left behind. And his eyes, those eyes which Miroku had always looked at with admiration, those lively eyes, they were gone forever. It had only been once that he'd seen what lay beneath the bandages and it had been enough to inspire many a sleepless night. And Inuaysha had still been ailing from them by the time Lord Sesshoumaru had showed up and ruined everything.

If Inuyasha's brother had only stayed away, away from their lives.

And that was selfish of him, incredibly selfish. He was jealous to the Lord of the West for his connection with Inuyasha, for their family connection. He had no family of blood any more, his last known relative having been his dead father. Yet he had been happy to see Inuyasha forge a shaky familiarity with his brother, a new connection after years of discord. Miroku blamed Sesshoumaru for taking his lover away, he must have agreed to his newly reconciled brother's hasty decision, it had to have been hasty, it was a lie to which the monk clung to.

Family, it was all about family, family and honour for the taiyoukai. He'd come and announced his brother's pregnancy in the wake of Kouga's blurted, ill-considered words, and saved the frail life of his brother's baby. It didn't matter to Miroku that Inuyasha would probably have died from the averted miscarriage, he had convinced himself that in that event, Sesshoumaru surely would have resurrected his brother with his life giving sword.

He hadn't considered the implications to his lover's shaky mind. Not at the time. But he had thoght long and hard about it. That Inuyasha clung to the child, a being that was his own flesh and blood, i_his precious child/i_, as he clung to sanity. Anything to keep his mind from sinking into shadows.

And he knew that Inuaysha needed to love the child, if his thoughts had been the same as his own, the monk shuddered to think what would be the outcome. Loving his child to allay hovering madness, Inuyasha was stronger than he ever was. Seeing his child's innocence.

How could Miroku deny him that? Deny him the happiness which the thought of the child brought Inuyasha. A child who might end up killing him. The monk wondered whether Inuaysha had thought about how much of a strain the pregnancy was to his body, his ill and broken body. That by carrying the child, he might die? That thought was quickly shoved to the back of Miroku's mind, along with his own steadily approaching doom. If he thought about either of them dying, he'd weep. He didn't fear their death in battle, they had both stared it right in the face in the heat of a skirmish, because it would have seemed more natural. But to be consumed by the curse in his hand or for Inuaysha to die after his body being weakened by Naraku's atrocious attack, while he gave birth to the bastards child... Those were not options that he considered with a light heart, an easy heart. They made him break out in sweat and his heart beat fast, his mind reeling.

The thought that he'd never see Inuyasha again. Not in this world. It scared him to death.

"Trouble?"

She was a miracle. In his head he praised her for breaking his morose, if needed, thoughts. Maybe she could distract him enough so he could meditate and in doing so be more attuned to his powers. He would surely need them in the coming days. And the thought of going off with the slayer and the wolf chief, facing their common foe, it brought Inuyasha back. Damnation.

"Yes, I do not seem to get Inuyasha out of my thoughts. I cannot meditate when he is all over my head, it breaks my concentration," he said to her, craning his head up to look at her.

The morning sun shone behind her, making her a dark outline, with him unable to see her expression. Which he did see was that she had her slayer's outfit on. So it had been decided. And well so, for he knew himself to be too much of a coward to leave the lethargy of staying in Kaede's village, waiting for his imminent death. "Oh, I see..." he said.

"We have to leave, the longer we linger, the smaller the chance to beat Naraku." She moved a few steps so he could see her better. Her face was grim and determined, Kirara was perched on her shoulder, nuzzling her cheek. And her eyes smiled for that small comfort.

"I know," Miroku said. "That is why I was hoping to meditate, I need to be able to fight him with all of my abilities."

"And you think too much, yes?" She asked, absently petting her furry companion.

"Yes, that is the heart of it," he admitted. "I know I need to fight so Inuaysha won't..." he couldn't get the words out, shook his head but the image haunted his mind. "Naraku needs to die." He held his hand, his cursed hand. It twinged, more a ghostly reminder than a sign of the curse winding to it's obliterating end. "I need the chance to apologize to Inuaysha." He sighed.

For from what Musshin had told him and how he'd himself felt in the past and now in the month's that had passed... He knew he was dying day by day, the curse throbbing each night with renewed malice, ticking away his remaining days. Pushing him towards his future of being consumed by nothingness.

"Before I die."

And she sighed, even while he knew she'd been expecting it. She had seen him cringe at times, stop and look at his hand. Stare at it like he had that night few days ago. His doom was coming and she'd seen it. Knew it and was sorry for him.

"So we kill Naraku before that happens, then."

Easy for her to say that, so easy. He chuckled darkly and she sighed again, realizing the absurdity of her words.

"I wish it was that easy as saying so," Miroku murmured, looking at his hand. He drew it closed into a fist.

"Yes." She complied, her hand gently stroking Kirara's head while the neko purred lazily. "And do not claim all of the world's suffering as your own. We other's suffer too, not just you and Inuyasha." She sounded so sad and he knew he'd been acting stupidly. It was easy to forget the sadness of others when his own mind was so filled with loss.

For through Naraku's death, she might get her brother back. If not the way he'd once been.

"Won't you care that he'll probably remember?" he asked before he could help himself.

She stiffened and a single sob escaped her lips, it was almost a sigh masquerading as a tear. She turned her head so he wouldn't see what he suspected were there, tears in her pretty eyes. She was face to face with her companion now, closing her eyes as Kirara pressed against her face in comfort, sensing her distress.

"No I won't. As long as he lives." And she looked at him. "I'm no better than you, I should wish him dead, for with him remembering how our father died, by his hand... It's more than I'd hope for anyone to have to bear on their conscience, even if he was used."

"We always want them to live, no matter what..." Miroku sighed. Life was hard and the fates were surely against them all. Why did they all have to be so damaged?

"Yes, oh we want them to live. I should wish him dead already, go to death with him because I was powerless to stop him. I will kill Naraku for ever harming him, making him go through that, even if he might not remember at all times... And then I'll die with him. If need be."

She was so determined. And he knew she might just go through with all that she'd said. Join her brother in death because he was the last thing that she had. Her remaining family who'd killed both their father and almost her too.

She was so much stronger than him.

Yet he'd die for Inuyasha, gladly. He'd die if it would mean that the attack on his lover had never taken place, he'd die in a heartbeat. He often wished he'd been the one to cross paths with Naraku that ill-fated day. His mortal human body wouldn't have lasted. He would have died in Naraku's hands. And then Inuyasha would have found his degraded body and been heartbroken. But he'd have been alive and unblemished and could have found someone else to love. Maybe even still reconcile with his brother. Maybe. But past was not something to be changed. At least such a power had not been granted to him. It was another thing for Kagome to be pulled into the past than for him to go back to the day of Inuyasha's attack and prevent it. He was no-one's reincarnation.

And yet he would die for him. Die for Inuyasha in battle if need be, hoping only that, when they were done, Naraku would be gone and the whole world well rid of his evil.

"I'll die for him." His words held a finality in them. And he knew she knew he did not talk about her brother, of course.

Seemed both had someone to die for but no-one to live for. He did but he wouldn't live if Naraku didn't die. So he would be content to die to assure his demise, if it came to that.

He only hoped he'd been able to see Inuyasha one last time, have one last kiss, tell him how sorry he was for having behaved so inexcusably and cruelly.

"Today?" Miroku asked, closing his eyes and folding his hands, trying to meditate again. He heard her shift beside him as his mind slipped into the comfortable, familiar, calm. So sought after and only found when he'd accepted his fate. Such cruel irony!

"Today," she confirmed. "I'll leave you to your meditation. I will talk to Kouga, he might come with us. It is a fools errand, but what can we do?"

"It always was a fools errand, Sango my dear."

"I suspect it was. We'll eat before we leave."

As her steps moved further away, he slipped deep into meditation.


	16. Chapter 16

Title : The Pain In My Heart

Author : Saraste

Beta: princess_mir

Fandom : Inuyasha

Pairing : Miroku/Inuyasha

Rating : PG-13

Word Count: 6191

Warnings : disfiguration, mpreg, angst, dark, morally heavy issues being discussed

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha depicted herein who belong to Rumiko Takahashi and the publishers of the series and the company who made the anime, I only borrow them in this work of fiction which I do for no monetary profit.

Summary : Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? And once the unexpected consequences of Inuyasha's rape come to light, will his and Miroku's love be able to bring them together again and pull Inuyasha away from a sinister fate?

* * *

Guilt ate away at Sesshoumaru.

He would be the worst brother if he would let Inuyasha continue to be as he was. To encourage it. His actions towards his brother must have just compounded to the sense of wrong in the way the hanyou saw the world now, his skewed perception. But in the current moment, the Lord of the West had no other choice. He couldn't wrench his ailing brother back into reality, right now. Inuyasha was too frail, his grip on life too shaky to try and persuade him that the one who held him wasn't the monk. That it was his brother, not the stupid monk that had his arms around him, his brother's robes onto which he bled. His brother, not the monk, keeping death away from him, trying to stave off the inevitable.

Sesshoumaru breathed in and frowned as he smelled his brother. The blood, the pain, the way death lingered around the hanyou. Inuyasha bore the smell of Naraku's poison as he carried the seed of his violation deep inside. Because of that, he was now slipping. Naraku's attack had damaged Inuyasha's mind, his nightmares were testament to the fact. Not even in dreams did the lord's brother find comfort.

The only comfort that Inuyasha had had since his attack had been in the arms of the man who claimed to love him. The man who should have been here. Holding Inuyasha, make him cling to life, stave away the nightmares and show the hanyou that whatever Naraku had done to him, he was a fool to believe in the lies his mind concocted as dark memories festered in his mind.

He should have been there.

Whatever Sesshoumaru might have said, even he was hesitant now. He watched his brother's slumbering form, slumped against him. He could feel the damp coldness of his half-brothers blood as it seeped through the light yukata he'd thrown on as he'd heard Inuyasha's agonized screams. Oh but to have come only to another nightmare, not this, his brother bleeding through the evil of Naraku's memory. Or rather, through the hanyou's own madness, driven on by the dreams.

Inuyasha seemed to be resting peacefully for the moment, alive but just barely, in a state of false calm, tinged with calamity. The thrashing was gone and he was slack, quietly bleeding all over Sesshoumaru's once pristine robes. Peaceful. The lord knew the calm was only outward, for there was a catastrophe slumbering inside the hanyou's mind.

Sesshoumaru glanced aside as his mind went back. The words haunted him, his brother's voice etched to his memory. _'Miroku, you came back!' _His brother's sorrow was gone now. It had hung in the air so thick as to taste. There was joy. Mad joy. False joy. His brother believed, having succumbed to some folly of his mind, that he, Sesshoumaru, was the human monk. Inuyasha's mind had succumbed to his nightmare and given in to fantasy. Believing in a lie concocted by his ailing mind as his body was slipping away.

Only then, as his brother held the Lord of the West happily in the belief that he was his lover, had Sesshoumaru realized what a mistake it had all been. As Inuyasha's blood seeped into his clothes, the silk clinging coldly onto his skin, only then did Sesshoumaru realize what a lapse of judgment on his part it had been to let Inuyasha leave his lover behind. His brother would have surely protested but the parting had not been doing any good to his health. Inuyasha's body might have been healing, if slowly, but his mind... Sesshoumaru cursed himself for not having noticed his brother's slow descent to darkness.

He should have seen. Yet he had quite haughtily dismissed the nightly recurring nightmares as par course. His brother had been violated. It was not something anyone would recover from, quickly. Still, he dismissed them as mere bad dreams. He did not think of the effect they would have on his brother's damaged sense of self, his shattered mind. From conversing with the miko, by her insistence, Sesshoumaru had been told that the nightmares had lessened. The monk had been sleeping by his brother's side, just sleeping, and his physical presence had seemed to help Inuyasha mend. That the human, a known lecher to the Lord of the West, had kept his wandering hands to himself did raise his opinion in the youkai's mind.

The Lord of the West sighed.

Crimson blood still flowed freely from Inuyasha's wounds, only a frail flicker of hope anxiously holding onto life, the hanyou was quietly slipping away. All Sesshoumaru could do now was not to jar his brother and flood him with his youki to keep him stable until the healer arrived. He cursed Naraku, and his own part in helping Inuyasha keep the child. Maybe it would have been better had his brother lost it. There would have been the slim chance of his surviving the loss... even if not mentally intact. His brother's skin felt cold and clammy under his touch. It was no good.

Sesshoumaru couldn't decide if, should his brother die, it would be better for him to do so in the belief that his lover was back. With the way his mind was corrupted by dark thoughts of Naraku, to the extend that he had done willful harm unto himself... maybe it would be kinder to just let him perish? Slip away quietly with his last memory in life, however false, of a lover's warm arms around him as he drew his last breath.

Even as he pondered, Sesshoumaru could feel his concentration faltering. He could feel Inuyasha's heart skip a beat, stumble. The youkai shook his head in attempt to clear it. He couldn't let his thoughts get the better of him. It showed how much he cared, that he let thoughts of his brother do so. That his feelings towards his half-sibling were strong enough to break his once sterling concentration and steely resolve.

When he cared, he seemed to lose his self, let his emotions run him wild. Before it had only been Rin, but in view of how much he'd let his brother get away with... it seemed he had always cared for his brother.

Sesshoumaru sighed again. No, he did not want his brother to die. Didn't want Naraku to have the real satisfaction of having killed him. Also, the Lord of the West hated the thought that his brother would die believing a lie. It was wrong. Yet...

Wouldn't I be better for him to die with false happiness than live a lie, of which there might be no coming back from?

There was a commotion as the miko and healer burst in. The old youkai woman crossed the distance from door to the bed in confident, hurried steps. Sesshoumaru looked over at them, the healer was already setting down her things by the bed while the miko cried and wrung her hands by the door. The girl clearly dared not enter. The Lord of the West cared not. He shook his mind free of all thoughts of Inuyasha's death, now that he miko was here... there was nothing to it but beat the odds and drag his brother back from the gates of death.

The healer was old Kaoru. She'd been seeing to Inuyasha's health ever since the hanyou had arrived at the castle, sick in more ways than one. As the miko hovered, undecided and terrified, the healer looked at her lord.

"You need to lay him down so I can have a look at him, my Lord Sesshoumaru." Her cool deep blue eyes met his. "The girl told me what to expect." He knew that she also saw it clearly, now, and smelled it. Her senses were more attuned than his, even if he did smell death creeping over his brother.

Sesshoumaru acceded, gently pushing Inuyasha away, trying to pry him off of himself and to lie down on the futon. But the hanyou fussed, refusing to let go, he clung to his brother desperately. Gasping as he was drowning, his wounds gaping over by his movement. Blood spattered on his brother's robes and onto the bed. Finally the hanyou uttered a string of broken words.

"Miroku, don't let go... Miroku..." The words sounded all the more desperate as blood trickled down Inuyasha's chin, adding a distinct gurgle to his tone. He coughed and his whole body shook violently as he gasped for air. Sesshoumaru kept a grip on him, steadying him with his right hand.

The youkai lord heard the miko gasp behind him. Thankfully she did not speak, he hoped she'd have the sense to remain quiet until Inuyasha was preoccupied. Even if his brother's noticing anything outside his grip to the person he thought was his lover was highly doubtful. But Sesshoumaru did not need the miko's hysterics any nearer himself for the moment. She kept away, silent.

"It's all right, Inuyasha." The lies clung to his lips, hollow and foul, if needed. "The healer will just look at you, I won't go away. I'll be right by your bedside, don't worry..." he soothed his brother, finally getting him to let go.

Kaoru took over, her hand gently easing Inuyasha down as the brother's parted.

As he stood away from the bed, Sesshoumaru saw the old healer's look. He didn't look at Inuyasha again himself, looking into her eyes and communicating a wordless understanding. What he'd seen before had been more than enough. The sight of his brother, mouth open in a scream, claws ripping at his own flesh, his clothes bloody, it would haunt him enough as it was. The healer nodded, bent on her task, murmuring. Sesshoumaru turned to look away. His golden eyes settled upon the miko, who'd now advanced into the room. He held her gaze, her wide and scared hazel eyes, and went to her while the healer begun her work.

On his way he looked down at his robes, they were bloody but he was as presentable as could be expected. But he did not care, his usual cool exterior slipping back into place. He needed it, needed to project a collected image of himself in front of the miko. He craved the safety of it, the protection of his mask.

"Why?..." the young human miko was cut short by the Lord of the West who slid the door behind her shut and took hold of her hand. He walked her from the door to stand by the still open window, keeping them in view of Inuyasha. Who had, Sesshoumaru quickly observed, slipped into unconsciousness again.

He spoke in a low whisper, keeping her close. "Inuyasha thinks I'm the monk, he is... lost to his hopes." Sesshoumaru informed the young woman in an undertone. For once, he disliked how harsh his words sounded. But there was no way he could say it any other way. And he needed to inform her, she was his brother's friend... she could help Inuyasha recover. She could at least try. Also, there would be no hiding Inuyasha's delusions, best lay them out in the open right away, the better to try and yank his brother back to reality.

Kagome's eyes widened as she looked at Sesshoumaru, he was certain she was happy to avoid having to look at his brother by looking at him instead. He felt her body tremble in his grip. She noticed how his hand had left a bloody imprint on her sleeve. Shocked brown eyes lowered to look at his bloody yakata and gasped.

She choked back a sob.

"Ohh, Inuyasha!..." her eyes swam with tears and Sesshoumaru twitched momentarily in the fear that she'd dare embrace his person. Gladly, she didn't. She merely shook her head, clearly trying to understand. He wished he did. "The nightmares, it's because of them, isn't it?" she questioned him with a low voice, her whisper demanding. She was always acting so... familiar with him.

Sesshoumaru suddenly looked towards Inuyasha, his brother had whimpered but was mostly docile once again. The boy's physical pain and false comfort swirled in the air. Mixing with the still present shadow of death. The youkai lord had dealt enough of it to be keenly aware of it's presence, it nagged at the back of his mind now.

"It would appear so," the Lord of the West answered promptly enough.

"Miroku..." the frail, hoarse and wet sounding voice of the lord's brother came from behind them. The healer gently shushed her patient. He coughed again, it made both the youkai and human shudder.

As Sesshoumaru turned, the girl lay a hand on his arms, making him to turn around and confront her. His golden eyes were questioning, arrogant.

"He can't be told. Not until he's stronger... Those wounds..." And the lord knew the girl would never be rid of the image of his brother either. Her brown eyes were huge and she looked to be on the brink of denial, giving him a momentary concern as to how well she would cope. He'd not have her fainting all over the place. Briefly he wondered if this would be the worse memory in her mind, or would it be of the time when they'd found Inuyasha. Nearer to death then than now.

The Lord of the West nodded. He'd not put his brother to undue risk. He couldn't deny the lingering scent of death which hung persistently over his younger brother. Kaoru the healer had tried all she could but she couldn't dispel it even when Inuyasha's health had been steady during his stay in the palace. Nor had the old youkai been able to draw out the poison clinging to Inuyasha's blood. The hanyou's affliction was something which greatly boggled Kaoru's mind.

As Sesshoumaru went to take Inuyasha's hand in his, he let his brother keep to his deception. Let him believe the monk was there. For the sense of doom hanging over all was too great. Even with such skill as Kaoru's, who could be certain that Inuyasha's wounds would not hasten his end. He was too weak for such blood loss. If such would be the case, in the end, then Sesshoumaru decided that would let his brother keep his comfort in dreams.

"I'm here, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru said to Inuyasha, cringing inside. It went against his nature to let this kind of deception continue. Yet he must. He could only hope that his brother would be safe in his delusions.

And he sat there for as long as was needed. He listened to Inuyasha's raspy breaths, felt the coldness of his hand in his, watched as he was tended to.

Finally Kaoru was done for the time being, heavy bandages covered the wounds on Inuyasha's body and she was giving him a quickly mixed potion to make him sleep. The lord's younger brother had almost instantly fallen asleep into what Sesshoumaru hoped was a dreamless sleep. He let go of his brothers hand and stood, going to Kaoru.

"Will he live?" the lord asked. He didn't like the lingering stench of poison and sickness still clinging to his brother.

Kaoru looked at him, he saw the frown on her face by the light of the candles. "It would be better if he was rid of the poison. It gnaws at him and I still can't banish it from his blood. But he will live, for now. The wounds were not too deep, it was the blood loss which weakened him." She closed her eyes. "But I can't deny that they were grave, the very fact that he coughed up blood... I was able to repair the damage he did."

"What of the..." Sesshoumaru stopped mid-sentence, an uncharacteristic thing. He began to ponder about the answer. What would be more preferable?

"The pup survives, for good or ill. I believe that he'd fare much better without it yet to lose it now would surely kill him," Kaoru concluded with her even tone.

Her words were nothing new to Sesshoumaru.

"The baby is killing him?" the miko joined in on the conversation. She shivered as she spoke, sorrow and anxiety clinging to her scent.

"In a way, yes," Kaoru replied, looking at her lords brother who for now was resting easily on the edge of the bed, wrapped up in a blanket. The bedding would need to be changed. It was ruined. "He's so weak that his being with child puts his body under enormous strain yet if he were to lose it, he'd die in labor."

Sesshoumaru asked the pressing question. He had to now, he'd avoided it weeks himself. Ever since he'd known and carried his brother far away from his lover, and his apparent anchor to sanity, Sesshoumaru had not thought about the implications of his brother carrying Naraku's progeny. Now was finally the time to lay niceties aside and be brutal in his words. He had to know.

"But is the _child_ killing him?"

The healer looked at him, she'd noticed his intent. She was clearly taken aback by his words, her blue clear eyes widening. Her lord was stoic but for him to ask such a thing so coolly?

Kaoru knew her lord would not rob his brother of his child, not even knowing that it had been conceived in rape. It was an innocent and her mind rebelled against the idea that it was in any way responsible for lord Inuyasha's condition. She was quite sure that the life within the hanyou had no other affect on his health besides the pregnancy taking it's toll on an already damaged body.

So she answered in the only way that she could.

"If he were healthy then both would be fine. I can't deny that the pup is taking his energy-," she was cut short by Sesshoumaru.

"That was not what asked, Kaoru." He shook his head, looking firmly into her eyes. "Is the _child _killing him, is it the reason the poison is still within his system?" Sesshoumaru's voice remained emotionless, he didn't let his worry for his brother to seep into his words. He had an image to preserve. Even while the current situation had greatly disturbed his equilibrium he wouldn't let it show.

The healer looked towards the bed, shaking her head as her eyes focused on the frail form of her lords brother. He'd need a change of clothes, poor boy. What he'd had on earlier, now lay in tatters by the bed, to be removed later. She'd had to disrobe him to bandage him.

"I can't tell, my lord. I don't detect anything alarming coming from the child," Kaoru said. "It doesn't have the same darkness as the cursed hanyou, Naraku. I can't say that it is evil."

Kagome had flinched at the mention of their enemy's name, now she looked at Sesshoumaru as the youkai let out a sigh.

The lord was annoyed. Of course it had to be complicated! Nothing that concerned his brother never seemed to not be.

The young woman looked at her friends brother, then at the healer and then she turned her eyes, reluctantly, to look at her friend. She kept her gaze away from the stain on the bed, shuddering internally as what she'd seen just moments before flashed through her minds eye. She focused and was reassured.

"I can't see any darkness from him, never have," she joined the conversation.

"Neither me nor Kaede have never seen a dark aura around him, apart from the poison, after... after... his attack." She looked hesitant as Sesshoumaru leveled his eyes at her. Honest and pained for Inuyasha. He smelled quilt hanging heavily on her. He saw her hands shake as she wrapped them tightly around herself. She was proving to be more hardy than he'd expected.

"So the child isn't evil on it's own but can still end up killing him?" Sesshoumaru stated, looking at Kaoru for confirmation.

The old healer nodded.

"He has youkai blood so his body can conceive and carry a child, but with his injuries..." the healer closed her compassionate eyes for a second. "...it threatens his life. The poison is the worst of it, if it were gone I think he'd stand a chance at living through the birth..."

Sesshoumaru looked at her and sighed. There was another, new concern for him to consider now. Something more alarming. For what would it do to his brother to be alive in body but lost in mind?

"But what of his mind?" the lord of the West asked somewhat testily, unable to completely hide behind his impeccable mask. Even in front of the human miko. "He thinks that I am his lover."

The miko gasped while the healer glanced back at the bed. The early morning light was starting to seep in through the still open windows. The world outside was waking, a stark contrast of life and hope as to what had happened in the very room they were in.

"That is a thing I cannot help you with, my lord. Unfortunately." Kaoru said quite sadly. "Poor pup, that he has to suffer so greatly." Her compassionate blue eyes lingered on Inuyasha's sleeping form, joined by Sesshoumaru's golden orbs and Kagome's tear-filled brown one's.

They were all silent for a moment, thinking.

"Is there anything that could be done to help him fight off the poison so he'd not?..." Kagome finally asked with a choked voice. The end of her words were swallowed by a sob. Her mind was reeling by the suffering of her friend. She kept her eyes on him, and him alone. Didn't glance at the mess of Sesshoumaru's clothes, or the disaster of her friends bed. But there was not much of Inuyasha to look at as would give the false image of health. He was bandaged, his visible skin still littered with a web of many scars. And his eyes... Those she'd never see again.

"I've been at the limit of what I'm able to do for him already," Kaoru replied. "I'm sorry, my lord." She bowed her hear to Sesshoumaru.

He merely looked at his brother. The bed was still a mess, the boy would need to be moved from it and laid to sleep somewhere else. There had been so much blood. And it stank. Inuyasha's cries still echoed in his head, overpowered by his delirious words to a lover who wasn't there. Sesshoumaru shuddered despite himself.

"Can you keep him alive if he does not hurt himself like he did tonight?" Sesshoumaru inquired.

"I will try. But if he grows much weaker than this..."

The girl sobbed.

With the aid of servants Sesshoumaru arranged for his brother to be moved to a new room while his old one was being cleaned. Inuyasha was carefully carried across the hall and into a room adjoining Sesshoumaru's. The elder brother also supplied the younger with a clean set of clothes. The miko insisted on helping him to gently wipe away the blood still clinging to Inuyasha's skin where he wasn't all bandaged up. She wept throughout, her tears wetting his skin, making dark patches on the pristine white bedding.

"This isn't fair," she whispered as they finally lay Inuyasha down on the soft pillows. A pail of pink water was next to the bed, soaked rags floating on the surface. She looked at her friend, noticing the dried blood matting sections of his long hair and choked back a sob.

"It isn't. Never is. But he wants to have it. He can't be told, miko. None of it."

She turned to look at the youkai, her brown eyes meeting his gold as a long pale finger lingered on Inuyasha's cheek in a rare show of affection.

"I know, I wouldn't. He is too fragile..."

Her hand squeezed Inuyasha's hand carefully, her eyes misting again as she saw how frail and beaten he looked. Knowing her friend had been responsible for his newest wounds himself didn't make Kagome feel any better. Instead she kicked herself for not having been there for him. Listening to his pain. She might have not been able to help that much, but she would have tried any way. Her kindness had been her undoing, she'd let Inuyasha drive her away so many times, being respectful of his feelings. In trying to be kind and understanding, she'd deprived him of the support he would have needed from her.

"Miroku should be here for him," she was adamant.

Sesshoumaru scoffed. "The monk would hardly do him any good!" His ire had risen again, despite what he'd thought about the monk earlier. His eyes looked down at his brother, he was kneeling by the bed, facing Kagome on the other side. The lord of the West frowned as his golden eyes lay on his brother's disheveled, messed-up hair. Flecks of crimson tainting the shine of pale silver. But such trivial concerns as the state of Inuyasha's hair were far from both his and the girl's minds.

"And thinking that you are Miroku will?" The miko countered him, emboldened by her concern for Inuyasha's well fare. Bold enough to stand up even to Sesshoumaru. "I wish he'll not be that confused when he wakes up. It's wrong!"

"Yes. I know."

Both looked at Inuyasha. Sleeping soundly on the newly arranged bed he seemed to be at peace. Morning was seeping in through the open windows, rays of light slithering over the blanket that covered his battered body. It seemed that life was something only reserved to the world outside. For inside the room resided uncertainty and almost crippling doom.

Inuyasha had rarely looked this frail.

Kagome voiced the unavoidable. "Do you think he should have it if it's killing him?"

"I do not know," the healer replied softly from where she'd stood silently at the end of the bed. She'd overlooked Inuyasha's moving, but had let his brother and friend care for him. She'd observed them cleaning his body without comment, what there was of it not covered in bandages. "But the question is futile in and on itself because if he were to give birth now, it would kill him. He hasn't the energy to bear through the birth, it would sap the last of his strength. He is doomed either way. What the young lord needs is a miracle I can't provide for him."

"How long will he still have to hold on?" Sesshoumaru asked. He of course knew that his brother would surely carry his child as long as a human female, things would have proceeded much more quickly already if he'd have carried it as a youkai or hanyou normally would. His brother desperately needed to regain more strength.

"Over four moons, but I can't promise that he will even manage that." The old healers voice was world weary. This was like nothing she'd ever seen before. The poison, the slow healing of the terrible wounds her patient had suffered, the pregnancy all combining together to threaten the young hanyou's life. "Even then I can't say that he'll survive the birth. He needs strength, health. But with the poison... I doubt he'll be able to carry the child to term with his health as frail as it is. Him surviving the birth would be a much needed miracle, his body is too worn."

With that the conversation was at an end on a grim note, leaving all of them unable to say anything more. Unwilling to voice their worry, to entice what ill fortune hung over Inuyasha by words of concern.

His brother stirred awake soon after they were done moving and tending to him. He did so despite Kaoru's sleep draught, a small miracle on itself, as the healer was known for the potency of her healing concoctions. Yet Sesshoumaru found a comfort in his brother's wakefulness, if not in his lack of lucidity. Awake, even while disturbed in mind, the hanyou was more tangibly alive to Sesshoumaru than when forcibly asleep. It was just the two of them, the miko and healer had left him alone with his brother but would be back shortly.

"Miroku..."

The youkai lord flinched inwardly as his brother's delusion was given an audible affirmation. He'd had an increment of hope that the storm clouds scattered over his brother's sanity would have dispersed. It had been a fools hope. But in regards to his brother, foolishness seemed to be the norm. Sesshoumaru could admit, even if only to himself, that he had treated Inuyasha in a distinctly varied way. He always seemed to let his emotions get the best of him when it was about the boy. He had long been a fool in convincing himself that he hated his only brother, and once he'd realized that he didn't, he hadn't been able to properly protect him. Not before, nor later. Sesshoumaru had realized the folly he'd done in leaving the monk behind as Inuyasha lay dying in his arms. He shouldn't have listened to his brother's insistence even if it had been the right thing to do, too.

It had been a grievous error to separate his brother from his lover.

He should have sent for the monk, before things had come to this. Had not the miko, irritable as she was, been berating him about it daily? Every time Inuyasha was out of earshot, she'd began to box his ears. She'd said that he was a fool. That Inuyasha needed Miroku. That what love she, or him, lord Sesshoumaru had for Inuyasha... it wouldn't be enough to safe him. The miko need not tell him that his brother was damaged, maybe beyond repair. It was evident.

It had all boiled down to that idiotic monk! Damn him! Damn his name. His brother would never utter his in quite the same way, not yet anyway. There was trust between his brother and the human which was not quickly built. Even while it had splintered, nigh shattered, by the monk's rejection. Still, Sesshoumaru grit his teeth and went through the motions. Calming his brother back into much needed sleep was essential now, his priority, not holding onto his dislike with everything related to the monk.

"Yes, I'm here, Inuyasha," he said to Inuyasha gently, trying to keep the edge off of his tone. "Rest."

He squeezed his brother's hand gently. He was amazed how strongly Inuyasha's mind could continue to deceive him. That he'd mistake a clawed youkai hand for human.

"You came..." Inuyasha's voice was still raspy from his screaming, still wet around the edges from the blood they'd wiped from his lips. Hopeful, pleased, content. It was terrible to hear.

"Yes, I did."

Sesshoumaru hated himself.

"Here when I wake up?"

Sesshoumaru almost wavered there and then. He heard the terror, the fear in his brother's voice. Could almost taste his desperation. Was this Inuyasha asking if it was all a lie? Was he even conscious of what he said? Even bordering on sane? Yet, as he'd not used the monk's name, Sesshoumaru only had one way in which could act. Only one answer. '_Assure him.'_

"Yes, sleep."

There, that wasn't a lie. He'd not admitted, that he was the monk, he'd just said that he would be there when his brother woke up. Not a lie. As he would be there, if it was in his power to be. There was no wrong in encouraging his brother to sleep.

And Inuaysha did. He didn't go out like a light but drifted into slumber. His breathing calmed by increments and finally his hand was slack in Sesshoumaru's grip.

The lord wondered about how many times he'd have to repeat what he'd just done. Play the role of his half-brother's absent lover and placate Inuyasha's madness. He wasn't sure how long he could keep it up.

The monk had to be found. There was nothing to it now. Inuyasha needed him and wanted him to be there, even if it had taken madness for him to admit it. Should Inuyasha die of his affliction, his lover, how much he may have wronged Inuyasha, had also a right to be by his side. Even if it was just for a farewell.

As the lord watched his brother sleep, his brother's growing belly evident under the covers, his mind drifted to his ward.

Rin.

He needed to spend more time with her. While his brother was top priority, she was no less important to him. He missed her laughter. Sesshoumaru had let the miko keep his adopted daughter company in days he'd not had the time, when Inuyasha would not see his friend.

Sesshoumaru knew Rin needed the connection to the human world the miko provided. And the miko was herself as much a child as Rin was, despite her body's age. Besides, Rin liked her.

Yes, he'd see Rin today, listen to all her silly mortal girl worries. He'd humor her and let her braid his hair, she loved doing that. And Sesshoumaru was more than happy to oblige. Anything to forget last night. If he ever could.

The miko would stay with Inuaysha while he was with Rin. He thought that the girl needed his brother now as much as he himself needed to be with Rin. He'd be back before his brother awoke, the promise he had made about being there, was something he intended to keep.

Sesshoumaru held Inuyasha's hand until he could tell his brother was in deep sleep. He watched the hanyou's face, his expression wasn't pained, as much as he could tell with the eyes covered under bandages. The muscle's of Inuyasha's face were relaxed and his breathing was even and calm. If one had simply observed his younger brother from the outside, everything would have seemed all right, well as right as could be with the amount of bandages he was covered with. Yet things were horribly, terribly wrong inside.

Something had to be done. It couldn't go on the way it was.

It was wrong to let his brother cling to his delusions. But would the darkness inside his brother's mind consume him if he knew the truth? Inuyasha's mind was too brittle when he was apart from his lover, but the deception simply couldn't go on. It had to end. Yet it was a delicate business, one wrong could easily plummet his brother into madness from which there would be no coming back from.

For once, the Lord of the West was at a loss as to what to do. And he resented feeling that way. Yet he had let his brother cling to his delusions. To have his comfort from them. Anything to keep his brother calm. It had been the only decision he could have done to calm his brother after he'd found him clawing his own flesh in the aftermath of a nightmare. Sesshoumaru needed time to think, to rest. Last night had been hard on him, even if he was Lord of the West.

Now that Inuaysha slept again, he had the time to think. Think about the mess his brother's mind had become. How he seemed to slip away from sanity and strength both. Sinking deep within himself, succumbing to Naraku's evil.

Sesshoumaru observed his brother, who bore what would be the newest addition to their bloodline. He wished that the circumstances were different. The innocent life his brother had so strove to keep... was killing him while he sank into twisted daydreams. He found himself briefly thinking how much better it would be if the child had been anyone's but Naraku's, even having the monk as a father would have been better than this. His brother's life hung on a thread that threatened to snap at any given moment, his mind was sinking where there might be no coming back from. Yet it would be inexcusable to let the deception continue. His brother didn't deserve to be so... Misguided.

But it was a delicate business. Sesshoumaru of all people knew how brittle his brother could be, he was brash and self-confident to a fault but in matters of trust... he was slow to trust completely. And was fragile. Understandably his ordeal has shattered something, which the monk's absence had made crumble altogether. So when his mind filled with nightmares, Inuyasha had sought for safety in imaginings. It could be kinder to let him believe a lie, even if it would be wrong. There was no telling what damage the continuation of the lies would do. Inuaysha might never escape from his fantasies. Sesshoumaru knew he owed his brother the truth.

Once Inuyasha was better, he'd put a stop to the lies. For good or ill.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: **Sorry for the long wait in between updates. The next few chapters will come quicker than this one, I promise! I almost lost this chapter while writing as my USB stick decided to go nasty on me. But the writing went smooth and I have the next two chapters almost done. Hoping they won't be in the works for too long! This is dedicated to all my readers.

* * *

Even healed, Inuyasha flitted in and out of consciousness for the next three days. When conscious, he wasn't exactly lucid. He was semi-conscious at best. However, one thing was painfully clear: Inuyasha had blocked the events of his self-mutilation from his mind. What was more unsettling was that he had had also seemingly banished the memory of the rape from his mind. He didn't even remember having been attacked at all. That the memory of Naraku raping him had been buried deep in his mind was a small comfort as it stopped the nightmares. Albeit it was unclear if Inuyasha even dreamed at all between his short spells of consciousness. Neither Kagome nor Sesshoumaru, the old youkai healer Kaoru, couldn't tell. If an indication of a nightmare, as it had been in the past with the ailing hanyou, was physical thrashing and shouting, he was having no nightmares at present.

Yet the almost eerie quietude into which he lapsed while unconscious now, was not a big improvement.

It unnerved especially Kagome in a way she couldn't explain, not even to herself. During her acquaintance with Inuyasha she'd never witnessed him being a mobile sleeper. The way the girl had seen the hanyou sleep most often had been sitting up, holding onto Tessaiga. Either by a fire or in a hut, sitting still but alert. Quiet. What there was now, wasn't what had been before.

Before...

Before the attack. Before Inuyasha's injuries sustained from the living nightmare, the appalling violation in Naraku's hands the hanyou had lived through. During the first few weeks after the rape it had seemed that Inuyasha got next to no sleep. Kaede had had to drug him as to avert some of the nightmares and give him a dreamless sleep, if only to give his mind a rest along his broken body which had for so long been immobilised by the worst injuries. Now, it seemed as if Inuyasha had been put into induced sleep, but that wasn't the case any more.

Not today.

At the moment, the healer Kaoru had administered medicines that she said would make Inuyasha slightly sluggish, she'd also given him the strongest pain draught she'd dared. Either the current situation was the unintended result of that mix, or Inuyasha's mind. Kagome fervently hoped for the former option.

It was the fourth day after they'd woken in the dead of night to Inuyasha's screams. It was the fifth month of his pregnancy, Kaoru had said that Inuyasha would have to hold on for four months, if the baby was to be born when it was supposed to. Looking at him now, Kagome shuddered because it was evident her friend wouldn't last that long. She sat by Inuyasha's bed, watching the rise and fall of his chest. He was alive, still alive. She glanced at some fruit in a bowl on a nearby table. His breakfast, should Inuyasha wake up before the midday meal.

Kagome herself had eaten only a meagre breakfast, the idea of eating while Inuyasha still hadn't properly woken up had robbed her of most of her appetite. The whole morning meal had been a subdued affair. Rin and Shippou had both been present and pouting since they weren't allowed to visit Inuyasha, not that either had seen much of him during the last month. Sesshoumaru had also been in attendance. Kaoru had been tending to Inuyasha's wounds and keeping an eye on him, so the hanyou hadn't been left alone. Both the lord and the miko-in-training had wanted to talk about Inuyasha but hadn't been able to do so in front of the children.

Neither Rin nor Shippou hadn't been told of Inuyasha's self-mutilation and attempted suicide. Nor his loss of a grip on reality. Both the youkai lord and human girl had agreed to keep it from them. Servants and retainers had also been warned off from mentioning it to them, either. There was no way either Rin or Shippou could be kept from blurting out to Inuyasha that Miroku wasn't there at all, never had been. One other reason to keep them from seeing Inuyasha, for the time being. Because they were, being children, perceptive and at least Kagome was sure they knew that something was terribly wrong with Inuyasha.

Breakfast had ended with little said between any of them. Kagome _had _taken Shippou aside to apologize to him for not again spending enough time with him, hoping that the fox-kit was okay with spending his time with Rin. Which he was, but not being with Shippou still made Kagome feel guilty.

After that Kagome had walked alone to Inuyasha's new rooms. They hadn't moved Inuyasha back to the room he'd previously occupied, the one where he'd hurt himself. First of all it was better that Inuyasha wasn't moved for a while and they thought that maybe a new environment would help him get better once he woke up for good. The room's where Inuyasha had given in to his mind's madness would echo the violence and terror back to them all for quite some time. Even if there had been no visible signs to tell what had happened after all had been cleaned up.

Inuyasha's new room was closer to Sesshoumaru's and a little farther from Kagome's own that she liked. It was also slightly smaller, but still had access to the gardens through a paper door. It was quite simply as furnishings went, also somewhat sparse in furniture. There was the futon, two tables, some shelves and pillows to sit on. Kagome had set a bouquet of wild-flowers picked by Rin and Shippou on the bigger table which was a bit farther from Inuyasha's bed. It was the one where food and water was kept, the smaller one housing his many medicines.

When Kagome had come to Inuyasha's rooms she'd stood at the doorway, holding onto the screen door, watching Kaoru. The old healer, a dog youkai, had been kneeling by Inuyasha's bed, holding the hanyou's hand. The morning sun had been seeping in from the open screen door leading into the garden's outside. It proved to bet yet another beautiful day. The fresh air wasn't too cold yet as to be detrimental to Inuyasha's health, even with the summer coming to a close. Kagome had looked at the healer. Kaoru had been looking at Inuyasha with a mix of horror and pity on her wizened face.

Kagome had coughed to announce her presence, even if there had been no need with Kaoru being a youkai, her senses were still very keen. "Good morning, Kaoru-sama," Kagome had said. And then she'd asked her question, as she had these past days. Always the same question spiced up with extras, like now, everytime met with variable answers. "How is he, Kaoru-sama? Is something wrong with him?" The old healers worried face had worried her in turn. She'd leaned against the wooden frame wearily.

The youkai woman had sighed. She'd let go of Inuyasha's hand, letting it rest on the covers and had then gotten up.

"Good morning, Kagome." Kaoru had put away a few jars as Kagome had continued to hover in the doorway. The healer had begun to keep some jars by Inuyasha's bedside, on the small table. There had been no sense in her dragging them about with her every single time that she saw Inuyasha, so she had a supply of what was needed for tending to the hanyou's wounds and also a concoction of potions to calm him and help him heal. Even if Inuyasha would never fully heal with the poison still coursing through his veins. It was also better to have the implements of healing better at hand in Inuyasha's room should the drastic events from few days ago reoccur. All of them had been on edge around Inuyasha the past few days, looking for any signs of … catastrophe.

The old youkai had turned to look at the girl. "There is no change. Inuyasha-sama is as he has been, these past days." The old healer had sounded somewhat defeated as she spokes to Kagome.

Wishing the healer a good day as the youkai woman had left, Kagome had taken over the place of vigil by Inuyasha's side. She'd fidgeted around a little whilst sitting down, the the yukata's she'd taken to wearing on Sesshoumaru's silent urging while being a quest to his home were taking a little getting used to. She could see the sense of them, the servants had been whispering all around her, making her on edge. Even while a yukata was summer-clothing, it had more fabric than did her school uniform. Modesty was suitable with the mood of these days.

And now there she was, sitting by her friend's sick-bed once again.

The silence was still unsettling, even after days of it. Kagome would have wanted nothing better than for Inuaysha to wake up. She knew he wasn't conscious, having gotten to know the way the hanyou held his body when he was awake during the last five months. Bandages covered Inuyasha's mangled eyes, so there was no other way than to look at the way Inuyasha lay or hear him speak to be certain that he was conscious. When the hanyou was asleep or unconscious he was eerily still and silent. Only the soft rise and fall of his chest was proof that he was even alive. His hands were laying at his sides over the blanket, now cleaned and slightly cut-short silver hair was spilling out around his face. Bandages over his eyes covered most of his face and his mouth just slightly open. Inuyasha looked so not himself Kagome wanted to cry. The hair was the new change that had come about in the last few days. It had been so bloody and tangled after that horrid night that they had had to cut it to shoulder length, there was no hope of cleaning it all out when Inuyasha was in no condition to even take a bath. So it had been cut short, merely touching his shoulder's now. Kagome had always known Inuyasha as the brash youth with silver hair and confidence to spare, he looked so alien now, hair short and confidence long gone.

She wanted to hear him speak, she wanted to say he was all right, to know Inuyasha was in his right mind again. Her thoughts drifted to their friends, they hadn't heard from any of them for over a month now.

Kagome thought about Miroku especially, what the monk would say if he knew how Inuyasha fared. What he would the monk do? Would Miroku come to Inuyasha's side now? His absence had been worrying her. She knew that Inuyasha had left a note to warm Miroku off but she'd thought that the monk wouldn't heed. Miroku had been so persistent in trying to get close to Inuyasha to help in the wake of Naraku's attack. His inaction now when Inuyasha needed him the most was unsettling. Miroku had been there for Inuyasha, loving him and caring for him, during those first nightmarish months. He'd soothed the broken hanyou through nightmares and searing pain. And then... then he'd flinched. And the rift between the lovers hadn't been mended. Inuyasha had told Kagome about it, but the hanyou hadn't confronted the monk, nor had Miroku approached Inuyasha verbally to try and work things out. But Inuyasha's need for comfort had made the estranged lovers seek each other out during the night. It had been from Miroku's embrace that Inuyasha had left in the dead of the night. Kagome was glad she'd woken to catch him. Not that she'd been able to talk to Inuyasha much, her friend had averted talking to him for two weeks before that final nightmare that had pushed the hanyou's mind and body into mad deeds.

Kagome was sure that if Miroku had still been by Inuyasha's side, if the lovers had still been together, Inuyasha wouldn't have attempted to take his life. To her, Miroku's continued absence from Inuyasha's side was boggling, there shouldn't have been any reason for it. Yet she knew, deep down, what was the reason behind the monk not being there at Sesshoumaru's ancestral home.

Kagome's eyes strayed to the curve of Inuyasha's stomach. That had to be it. Even with the reality of it staring her in the face she was still getting used to the idea of her friend being pregnant. She had accepted the idea of the child being Inuyasha's and his only, long talks with the hanyou had assured that. Inuyasha had been trying to think of the child as his alone in the months he'd known about himself being pregnant. He'd loved the child instinctively the moment he'd known, begged Kaede to help save it. Not once had he told Kagome that he would have been better off without it. Better off dead. Yet now she knew that doubt about his decision had been creeping into Inuyasha's mind in the weeks when Kagome had not really spoken with him. Sesshoumaru had told her of how miserable Inuyasha had finally gotten. The youkai lord had taken his brother under his wing, even claiming to protect his unborn child from harm. She knew he'd tried to allay his brother's fears and doubts, had tried to make Inuyasha remember that he wanted the child. Family was important to the two inu brother's.

Miroku hadn't been so quick in his acceptance as his lover, or his lover's brother. Inuyasha may not have seen how his lover looked at him sometimes. There wasn't loathing in the monk's eyes, never had been, but when his eyes had rested on Inuyasha's stomach there'd been trepidation. Miroku had tried, that much Kagome knew. The monk loved Inuyasha but his lack of love for the child, one more physical mark of Inuyasha's violation, had been the end for them. And the monk had flinched and, somehow, Inuyasha had known it.

Blind the hanyou might have become but he could read people even without, or maybe because of, his lack of physical sight. Inuyasha had known. And had ran off without confronting Miroku with it in the dead of night days after. Kagome had decided to accompany him with Shippou in tow, but in following him she'd effectively cut herself off from her flesh-and-blood family. Kaede's village and the bone-eaters well was just far enough off to reach comfortably and with their group so divided she wasn't sure if it was safe to travel alone. She didn't quite trust Sesshoumaru with the truth about her origins, and she would have to tell him if she was to have any protection in travelling through the countryside to Kaede's village. And she couldn't leave Inuyasha's side without giving the youkai lord a proper explanation as to where she was going.

Kagome knew that her mother worried about her, as would her grand-father and Sota but... she also loved Inuyasha like a brother too. She couldn't leave, especially not now. She'd last been home over a month ago, just before they'd left for Sesshoumaru's. She'd said to her mother that she might be gone for a while this time. Her mother had embraced her tightly and told her to be careful. Kagome had left with tears dripping down her cheeks.

Looking at Inuyasha now, the youth she had known in the beginning replaced with this broken stranger, Kagome knew that she loved him still. Not the school-girl crush she'd had in the beginning. No. That had been replaced by Inuyasha's brotherly worry. Comrades had become family to the loveless hanyou. After his fifty-year sleep trapped to the Goshinboku, Inuyasha had woken up into a new life and world, and a new family. Sesshoumaru, his only blood-kin, had denied familial love for quite some time, his confused feelings masked in anger and aloofness. Yet the youkai lord had never managed to fatally wound his brother, as much as he claimed he'd kill his 'misbegotten' hanyou brother on sight. So new friends had become family, and more.

Inuyasha's friendship and camaraderie with Miroku hadn't yet blossomed into a relationship before the attack, but the attraction and pull had been there. They'd all seen it, even if the men in question had been hedging around the subject for some months. After the attack, Inuyasha had felt unclean and shunned everyone, especially Miroku, but Kagome had known. She'd sat by her friend back then, much like now, and listened to his broken mumblings as fever burned Inuyasha up. Inuyasha had felt undeserving. He'd felt damaged beyond repair, broken in a way which could never be mended, lost. A future with Miroku snatched away as Naraku had ripped into his flesh, invaded and violated what should have been freely given, would have been, had it been the monk.

Finally, Miroku had saved Inuyasha from the nightmares and self-accusations boiling in his mind. The monk had accepted Inuyasha and he'd began to slowly heal. Now it had all been undone. Kagome wondered which had broken her friend more, Naraku's violence or Miroku's insensibility and stupidity.

"Please wake up," Kagome pleaded with a soft tone. She took hold of Inuyasha's hand. It should have been Miroku there instead of her and they all knew it, even Inuyasha. But to him, daydreams gave comfort. A lie soothed his maddened mind. Yet it was wrong. Kagome hoped that Inuyasha would wake up and be of sound mind again. "Please be okay..."

She both dreaded and waited eagerly for Inuyasha to wake up. The hanyou had been more awake yesterday than the previous two days, after all. Even then he'd woken up only a handful of times. During none of those times had he been fully coherent. He'd been somewhat alert but not enough to really know what had been happening around him. He'd eaten a little and then gone back to sleep.

Kaoru had given Inuyasha draughts to keep him under the first two days following his 'incident', but even under the influence, Inuyasha had managed to drag himself into wake-fullness. Once only on the first day had he woken and been alert, if not sane. He'd asked after Miroku and been pacified when Sesshoumaru had taken his hand in his. The hanyou's brother had offered Inuyasha some soothing words, he hadn't neither denied or admitted into really actually being Miroku. Kagome had been present. She'd sat by Inuyasha that whole first day, and had seen a frown grease the regal youkai's forehead. The lord of the west hadn't been pleased with his own actions, even when he hadn't technically lied to Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru had left right after Inuyasha had fallen asleep and had spent most of the day with Rin. He'd arrived to dinner with braided hair.

The second day Inuyasha had woken at mid-day after his semi-conscious intake of his medicines in the early morning. He'd seemed coherent until he'd asked after Miroku. He'd called the child he carried "theirs", his hand gently cradling the swell of his belly. Kagome had entered to hear the tail end of the absurd conversation between the hanyou and Kaoru. Inuyasha had drifted off to sleep after drinking some more medicine and some nutritious broth. The healer had later filled in both Kagome and Sesshoumaru about the conversation. The youkai and girl had exchanged hurried words before Sesshoumaru had had to leave to tend to some urgent business. Kagome had been left to her thoughts.

At dusk that same day Inuyasha had stirred a second time, which had worried Kaoru. The healer had said that no-one should have been able to fight off the potion she'd given Inuyasha. The hanyou's persistence in being able to do so worried the healer. It should have been impossible. Sesshoumaru had been with Rin so Kagome had been the one to deal with the hanyou's questions about Miroku while she fed him some broth. She'd averted them by telling her friend that Miroku was away for the moment but would be there soon. She'd been infinitely glad that Inuyasha had been content with that. But she wasn't sure how long she could avert Inuyasha's questions before resorting to lying to him. To her comfort Inuyasha had fallen asleep after he'd eaten. The short conversation had been harrowing. Kagome had been close to tears.

Yesterday had seen Inuyasha more alert. Kaoru had ceased on giving him the sleep-inducing draught. She'd said it would have been dangerous to persist in giving it to the hanyou. His body was fighting against it as it was. And it was not good for his condition, either.

Condition.

It felt so real now. Kagome herself had felt the child kick against the palm of her hand often enough. Just yesterday Inuyasha had taken hold of her hand and her it to his growing belly. She'd startled as something within him had shifted and pushed against her palm. It had made it so real, almost too real. Inuyasha had almost smiled. "He'll be a fighter just like his father," the hanyou had said, his voice full of pride. Kagome had been at a loss as to what Inuyasha had meant by it. _Whom _he meant by it. But she'd been informed and not been too happy with the knowledge.

"You think it'll have the Kazaana?"

Kagome remembered her gasp, she'd almost given in that time. But it felt cruel to dispel Inuyasha from his delusions. He'd sounded so content. _'Let's pretend a little while, he's so content now. It'll only hurt him to know...' _So she'd smiled and willed her voice to not shake as she'd answered Inuyasha. "No, I don't think so. I'm sure it'll be all right. Remember how Miroku was a boy already when..." And there she'd stopped, on the verge of saying the wrong thing. For had the child really _been _Miroku's, it would only inherit the wind scar at it's previous bearer's death. At Miroku's death.

_'But I don't know if he's still alive!' _had been Kagome's thought before she'd had to calm a crying Inuyasha down. She could have hit herself over her stupid behaviour and extremely bad choice of words.

"He thinks that the child is his and Miroku's," she'd whispered to Sesshoumaru when the youkai lord had finally come and sit with Inuyasha in the evening. The youkai's head, already looking at his brother's slumbering form, had turned sharply to look at her. She'd been standing in the doorway, he'd almost already sat down by Inuyasha's side but came back to her when she'd spoken.

"What did you tell him, foolish ningen?" the lord of the West had asked her quietly, not wanting to disturb his brother.

"Well I couldn't tell him the truth, could I?" she'd said, thinking he was a bit slow. Such an absurd thought that had been, in regards to Sesshoumaru.

"What did you say?"

"Inuyasha asked if the child would inherit the Kazaana. I shouldn't have said what I did." Kagome had felt herself wilt under Sesshoumaru's steady gaze. "I said it was unlikely, that Miroku himself had been a boy already. Inuyasha burst into tears and cried himself to sleep."

"That was very foolish," Sesshoumaru had hissed at her.

"Yes, I know!" she'd hissed back at him. Sesshoumaru almost always made her feel like she never even did anything right. Like her being a human, a mere _ningen, _was proof of that. That she was a woman also factored in, she was sure. Even while Sesshoumaru seemed to not be that archaic in his attitudes towards women, Kagome felt like he was, anyway.

"Then he fell asleep, yes?" the youkai had inquired, his eyes now looking down at his brother.

"Yes," she'd replied, turning her head away from the two brothers. She'd stared at the wall blindly, sighing.

"I shall go to him now. You go and think about what you've done and what is proper behaviour around him now." Sesshoumaru had looked at her scathingly before he'd turned completely around and sitting by Inuyasha's side.

"Look, Sesshoumaru-_sama, _I know I shouldn't have indulged him but are _you _any better?" She'd left Sesshoumaru to mull over that remark.

Inuyasha had woken up twice more after that, once in Sesshoumaru's presence and once very late at night when Kaoru had been redressing some of his wounds. Both had held a hedging conversation with the hanyou. Their luck was that Inuyasha still recognized Kaoru for who she was. If he hadn't, treating him would have become rather difficult. Sesshoumaru hadn't been able to come forward with the truth either during his conversation with his brother. These days Kagome felt sure the lord was just a big softie inside. She knew he was, the way he acted with Rin. Letting the girl get a way with so much.

"Why all the fuss?"

A soft, somewhat scratchy voice interrupted Kagome's flow of thoughts. Her head snapped up from where she'd been staring at her lap. Her eyes had been blindly intent on her interlocked fingers. She'd been lost in mulling over the events of the last few days in her mind. Kagome smiled even while she dreaded what Inuyasha's frame of mind would be this time. Heeding Sesshoumaru's admonition, she chose her words carefully and kept herself at check.

"You've been sick, Inuyasha," she said, while grasping for a gentle tone. "Don't you remember?"

She braved leaning forwards to pat one of Inuyasha's hands gently. Both his hands were fidgeting restlessly over the bedding.

Inuyasha turned his head towards her. He was pale. And thin. The time he'd spent at Sesshoumaru's castle had made him some good, he wasn't as emaciated as he'd been before at Kaede's village, but he was far from a healthy weight. He was too sick still, the after-effects of Naraku's attack having wasted his body enough even without the pregnancy. He'd never really recovered from the injuries Naraku had left him with before the pregnancy had really begun to take it's toll on his body. And now this incident, his attempted suicide, would set him back for weeks to come. The out-come was now even more grim than it had been before.

As Kagome watched him avidly, the hanyou swallowed, his tongue darting out to wet his chapped lips. "Have I?" Inuyasha finally asked, his voice tired and confused.

Kagome frowned, willing her hand to not grip his convulsively, letting out her cards. "Yes. How do you feel now?" She was worried, this was unexpected. For him to even forget being sick.. It was unnerving. Inuyasha had to be confused after having been out of it for so long but to not notice the aches and pains of his body upon waking? Unbelievable.

"Achey all over..." Inuyasha complained. Kagome was relieved, he wasn't completely out of it, just confused.

The hanyou stretched his limbs and winced. He must have jarred his still healing stomach wounds. Naraku's poison still continued to slow his healing abilities considerably. What would have been a quick recovery only five months before was a way of pain now. Inuyasha had recovered so slowly from the initial attack and this new one, only two months after his almost-miscarriage... It was a wonder both he and his child were even alive. "What happened?" Inuyasha asked distractedly, letting his body slump down on the bedding. His hand came up to the bandage over his eyes, as if wondering what it was doing there.

_'Don't ask about your eyes, please!'_ Kagome pleaded inside her head. She knew she'd tell Inuyasha everything if the hanyou did so. She wished his disorientation would only be the normal kind that people had after a long period of unconsciousness. She had to tread careful now. Even if she hated to lie. But to yell the truth to Inuyasha's face now, when he was weak and disoriented. She couldn't do it, it wouldn't be right by any moral standards.

"There was an attack, don't you remember?" Kagome asked cautiously. She hoped it was ambiguous enough. Part of her still wanted to scream the truth to Inuyasha's face, make him know the reality, but... Not when he was like this. She simply couldn't do it. Not like this. Her eyes searched what she could see of his face for clues as to his mood. Tone told only so much. She needed to keep Inuyasha content.

Inuyasha was silent.

Kagome looked at him intently as several thoughts ran through her head. _'Oh, if only Miroku was here!... and Kouga.' _She hadn't dared to save the wolf a single thought since coming to Sesshoumaru's castle. She trusted Kouga to think about what they had enough for both of them. Before the giddy happiness welling inside her could overwhelm and distract her, she reoriented herself. She shook her head and let it rest on Inuyasha's face.

His poor face. The faint lines of scars still showed on the hanyou's cheeks and the parts of his face not obscured by the bandages over his eyes. The tips of the worst scars peeped out just under the white linen. She hadn't been present when his eye-dressings were changed in a while, the memory of it from before still haunted her. Inuyasha's eyes had taken a turn for the worse again. She could tell by the faint dark spots already forming on the bandages. It was the poison burning through the scars on Inuyasha's eyes. The thought made Kagome sick.

Inuyasha coughed and winced. His hand sought out a spot on his side where there'd once been cracked ribs, now months ago. It was amazing how he'd managed to recover from Naraku breaking most of the bones in his body, even if it had taken him months for them to heal. Painful months. Inuyasha's hands moved from his sides and over his torso to feel the bandages covering his midriff. Kagome knew he couldn't deny the bulge of his stomach for what it was. A pregnancy. He didn't say anything about it for the moment. She bit her lip, waiting for him to speak. "Someone run me through or something?" Inuyasha asked, as his hands worried over the bandages over his self-inflicted wounds. He swallowed and then asked another question. "Gimme some water, Kagome?"

"Yes, wait a moment." Kagome let the first question slide. She got up and walked a few steps to a low table to retrieve a jug of water. Coming back, she took a ceramic cup from a small table by Inuyasha's bed-side and filled it with the fresh water. She looked at the hanyou as she put the jug down, raising the cup in her left hand. She draped her right hand behind Inuyasha's upper-back and helped him raise his head. "Here, I'll help you." It was a testimony to his discomfort that Inuyasha didn't protest. She sighed softly as he gulped down the water. _'Minute at a time...'_

Once back in a prone position, Inuyasha hands settled over the bulge. He felt the shape of it, as to reaffirm it was there.

"The kid okay?"

Kagome let her breath out in a whoosh. So he did remember some things. Well, being pregnant was not something one would forget. She hadn't seriously thought that he could, no matter whose child he thought he was carrying at any given time. Kagome knew that Inuyasha had to feel the baby moving inside him now, as she had herself felt it move within him just yesterday.

"He's fine", she laid her hand over one of the hands on Inuyasha's belly and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She even found herself smiling as she said those words. It was a child, after all. She knew that in some way she may have been justified in having negative feelings towards Inuyasha's unborn baby because of how it was conceived and because of the other parent but... she couldn't. It was just a _child. _A child wasn't evil. It was Inuyasha's child too. No child of his wouldn't be anything but cute and kind. Inuyasha would raise him well, if he'd live. Her eyes were glued to her hand over his and she noticed how frail his looked.

Kagome shook her head to reroute her thoughts, wallowing in angst wasn't the way to go now. She needed to be upbeat, for Inuyasha. She had to try and help Inuyasha out of the shadows of his mind, for his child deserved a parent who was sane. It did no good for Inuyasha to continue to dwell on dreams for the rest of his life. A lie was a lie, however nobly and hurriedly the initial deception had been devised.

Yet it would be hard to undeceive Inuyasha. If only Miroku were there.

"Good," Inuyasha said, once again breaking Kagome's moody thoughts. He squeezed Kagome's hand between his. Then it came, what Kagome had feared. "Where's Miroku?"

Kagome couldn't help but shudder a bit as her head snapped up to look at Inuyasha's face. If anything he looked hopeful, he sounded hopeful, expectant. Slightly aggrieved. Upset that the monk wasn't there. She curled her fingers around his within the clasp of his hands. She took a deep breath and spoke. "He's not here now." She wanted to bite her treacherous tongue off. '_Idiot!' _It seemed that her sub-conscious was intent on throwing the truth at Inuyasha every chance it got. But maybe starting off gently would ease Inuyasha back into the truth? Back into reality. Sanity.

Inuyasha's hands grew tight around her hand. "I know, there's no-one here besides you." He turned his head from side to side. It looked like he was trying to see. Kagome choked back a sob, knowing he never would. Inuyasha's head turned back towards Kagome again. "Kagome, where _is _Miroku? Why ain't he here?"

"Umm, I'm not sure?" she offered with an uncertain tone and a weak smile. The hands around hers were really tight now, it was beginning to hurt a bit. Yet she wouldn't draw her hand away. She felt a fluttering kick against her wrist where it lay against a less bandaged area of Inuyasha's stomach. She gasped.

"You talked with him yesterday, I heard!" Inuyasha accused. He let go of Kagome's hands, one of his claws accidentally pricking her skin. Both of his hands then went to cradle the swell of his belly protectively. Kagome couldn't be sure, but she thought he was frowning.

"In the evening?" Kagome asked cautiously, trying to buy time so as to think of what she should say. She knew Inuyasha had to mean that he'd heard her talking to Sesshoumaru. She wished he wasn't so confused. She was just a girl, in no ways prepared to deal with such a situation. Inuyasha's grip on reality was so fragile, she saw it now. Kagome had gotten used to dealing with Inuyasha's state of mind after the attack, but this new madness of his was still too fresh. She kept her face strained on Inuyasha as her hands settled on her lap. Kagome was afraid to touch him, her hand still hurt after the way Inuyasha had had it in his crushing grip before.

Inuyasha nodded as an answer to her question, his hands still around his stomach. He looked restless. Kagome decided to brave the truth. Inside, she wished Miroku ill for leaving them all in this situation. True, Inuyasha had surrendered to darkness all on his own, but the reason he had was because Miroku had not been there for him.

"I was talking with Sesshoumaru, you were so sleepy that you must have..." Kagome began, reaching out to touch Inuyasha's arm to reassure him. She drew back mid-sentence as Inuyasha swatted her hand away and pushed himself up into a sitting position, facing her.

"You were talking with Miroku!" The hanyou broke into a hacking cough in the wake of his heated accusation. His body was bent in half he as struggled to breathe, clutching at his stomach. Inuyasha strove to breathe deep to stop his cough.

Kagome quickly poured Inuyasha another cup of water and bent close to the hanyou to help him drink, murmuring calming words. He took her help without grumbling too much. She frowned in concern. Kaoru hadn't expressly forbidden Inuyasha to stand up, so why the cough? Was it his temper?. She blanched as Inuyasha coughed up droplets of blood. Just then Kaoru saved the situation by showing up. The old healer assessed the situation quickly and then went about her business. Inuyasha was helped into a proper sitting position and support provided. Kaoru gave him a draught to stop the cough. She shook her head at the blood on his lips. She pursed her own, clearly displeased. Mostly at Kagome, who had let Inuyasha become so upset.

"What on earth did you do, girl?" Kaoru asked as she held Inyasha's wrist and felt for his racing pulse.

"I heard her talking to Miroku last night and she said she hadn't!" Inuyasha's head swerved to Kagome's direction, she was standing up behind Kaoru. "She's lying to me!" If Inuyasha had been able to glare at Kagome, he would have. But he managed well enough by doing it verbally.

Kaoru turned to look at Kagome, who shook her head. Kagome looked directly into Kaoru's eyes, hoping that the desperation she now felt showed in her face.

"I'm not lying, Inuyasha," Kagome stated gently. "I talked with Sesshoumaru, did I not, Kaoru-sama?" She silently pleaded for the healer to back her story up. Kaoru had been informed of their talk by Sesshoumaru. So she knew. And she'd not lie.

"You did, child." Kaoru laid a comforting hand on Inuyasha's fore-head, checking for fever. "Hush now, Inuyasha-sama, and be still. You are hurt and need calm and rest." The healer placated her patient gently. She frowned. "How do you feel?" she asked, taking her hand from Inuyasha's brow and settling it over his rounded mid-section. The healer nodded, clearly satisfied that the child which Inuyasha carried was as fine as could be.

"Achey. She said there was an attack?" Inuyasha's tone had grown somewhat suspicious now, his accusation of Kagome having lied about not talking to Miroku not forgotten.

Kaoru looked up at Kagome sharply. The girl shook her head to tell the healer Inuyasha hadn't remembered But she pleaded with her eyes for Kaoru to prod a little more, dig a little deeper.

"What do you remember?" Kaoru asked Inuyasha gently. She patter one of the hands that lay protectively over Inuyasha's growing belly.

"Not much," Inuyasha said vaguely. "I was fighting? There was a voice from the dark and claws in my gut..." His voice started to shake a bit at that. It was obvious he was veering close to remembering now. But what would happen when he _would _remember? What Inuyasha had done that night had been horrible to watch, but to have lived through it? Kagome shuddered a bit as thought about it.

"It's all right," Kaoru squeezed Inuyasha's hand in hers. "Don't dwell on it now."

"But I _was _fighting?" Inuyasha pressed on. His hand roamed over his body and settled on his eyes. " But I'm blind. How am I blind?" Inuyasha's voice raised in tone and his head turned towards Kaoru first, then towards Kagome. "You, you know! Kagome, don't lie to me!" He extended an accusing hand towards her, pointing at her. He snarled, his hand grabbing at her hand but she pulled away, just missing his extended claws.

Kagome shook her head. "I... You need to calm down, Inuyasha. Please?" She pleaded close to tears. Kagome knelt by Inuyasha's bed and reached out for him but he swatted her hand away.

"You know! Why won't you tell me? Why d'you keep lying'?" Inuyasha grimaced as he struggled to get up to get at Kagome, better to confront her.

Kaoru put her hand on his arm to keep him from getting up. "Lie down, Inuyasha-sama. You're still too hurt." She was looking rather displeased with her uncooperative patient. Her eye strayed to the jars and vials on a shelf nearby, clearly cataloguing them to find something to calm Inuyasha, if need be.

Inuyasha's head snapped back to Kaoru. "You make her stop lying to me then!" He gestured at his eyes emphatically. "Why am I blind? The hell happened?" Inuyasha's claws pricked the skin of the bandages over his eyes. "Why can't I remember anything?"

Kagome sobbed softly, looking at her friend. Inuyasha was so distressed. This was worse than before. How could he have forgotten? '_Maybe it's for the best... No! It can't be. Look at him!' _Her eyes jerked back to his face and Inuyasha's panicked voice echoed in her head. She'd rarely heard him become so panicked. All Kagome wanted was to hug Inuyasha and tell him everything would be all right it the end. Even when she knew it was such a lie. Inuyasha wouldn't be okay until he remembered and a part of her wanted him to never remember. Better for her friend to not remember the rape. Inuyasha could have a fresh start with Miroku like this, couldn't he? If only the stupid monk would agree to it. See the child Inuyasha was carrying as theirs and... _'No, it would never work...' _Kagome bit her lip, crying, at a loss as to what to do. She looked at Inuyasha and sighed deeply.

If only he would remember everything! Even the bad things...


End file.
